


What Was So Easy In The Moonlight (By The Morning Never Is)

by KayMoon24



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Bisexual Dorothea/Edelgard (post relationship), Bisexual Female Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Caspar injured, Complete, Confessions, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Skating, Internalized Misogyny, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Male Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Part 2 now features Annette/Felix, Part 2 now features Hilda/Lorenz, Part 2 now features Sylvain/Dorothea, Post-Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Sex, Sexual Roleplay, Sickfic, Sleep Deprivation, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Sylvain Has Issues, Sylvain and Linhardt bond, Verbal Abuse, Verbal Humiliation, Winter, chapter 1 has, i have a bad obsession with people touching other peoples' hair, romantic confessions, sleepy Caspar, sleepy Linhardt (obv), thegoodporn, this is lowkey CHRISTMAS FIC in SEPTEMBER
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-13 15:29:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20584790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayMoon24/pseuds/KayMoon24
Summary: When a sexy role-play with Dorothea falls apart, Sylvain finds himself depressed, naked, alone, and freezing to death just outside of her bedroom door. That’s when Linhardt finds him. That’s where it all of the broken pieces finally start falling back together.Alternate summary: Dorothea’s hands moved to his bare chest. She gently laid both hands, palms down, like a prayer over where his heart might be. “You’re just like me.” She whispered into the hollow of Sylvain’s throat. “You’re empty inside.” Her heartbeat was rising like the church's ceiling, pooling open wider and bigger than he could possibly have imagined; a heartbeat was merging into his own, over taking it, eating away the sound of living. “We’re just two lonely parasites, all alone without a host to feed us, circling around and around, eating at one another until one of us is left dead. The thought of us makes me so sick.” Her lips smiled into his skin.  “I think I want you even more.”fic focus: (Sylvain/Dorothea) as well as (Linhardt/Caspar)





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> An: this is twisted and dark and Sylvain doesn’t deserve to be treated this way. Why did I do this to my charming sweet red headed good son? I just needed to explore Sylvain's pshye, he is so good to everyone else, but what about HIM?? also what about Dorothea, oh my god, poor girl.
> 
> fucking Linhardt is amazing. Caspar is baby. I am dead.
> 
> I know this is so so so so SO LONG but this is who i am fandom, this is what I am, judge me as you will. Warning: angst like whoa (but then sweetness ohmygoood)
> 
> This fic is so loosely connected to my other FE:H3 fics that you really don't need to read them first to get it, buuuuuut, you're welcome to do so ; )
> 
> if you like my work, or want to know more about why Sylvain references Dimitri breaking a teammate's arm check out my (completed) FE3H fics for more drama, sauceyness, and angst: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20314261
> 
> Enjoy, sweet fandom!

* * *

_Dorothea’s hands moved to his bare chest. She gently laid both hands, palms down, like a prayer over where his heart might be. “You’re just like me.” She whispered into the hollow of Sylvain’s throat. “You’re empty inside.” Her heartbeat was rising like the church's ceiling, pooling open wider and bigger than he could possibly have imagined; a heartbeat was merging into his own, over taking it, eating away the sound of living. “We’re just two lonely parasites, all alone without a host to feed us, circling around and around, eating at one another until one of us is left dead. The thought of us makes me so sick.” Her lips smiled into his skin. “I think I want you even more.”_

* * *

A loud thud caused Sylvain to open his eyes to darkness. A yell of pain caterwauled after it.  
  
Sylvain pulled himself up through the quilts of his bedding, eyes not yet able to crack through the chilly dark. The sound had split the night like a stray tom from just outside his bedroom’s window and sent a stray shot of adrenaline right up his spine. His mouth opened, thirsty and dry, and he realized he had been panting in his sleep, fists balling the quilts into two hard knots.  
  
Fragments of a nightmare turned memory danced behind his eyelids: _ his lord father gripping too tightly over the collar of his shirt, the unheard language of disappointment had become second nature all too soon, Sylvain, Sylvain, your Crest and your Crest alone is what keeps you in this house, boy, not sentimentality, mess around with that lordship’s daughter once more and I’ll see to it that King Lambert separate you from that son of his! _ _  
_  
Sylvain sucked the cold air deep into his lungs. He held it there. He kept it there. He waited for it to boil back up, hot and angry, ready to swallow the pain back down, but his mouth wouldn’t listen. Something like a migraine flickered under his right eye. A pain that beat, low and heavy, in time with his breathing.  
  
A dream about his home. Sylvain hadn't had a dream about his family in a long, long time.  
  
He laid there to listen. Soon, low voices followed, the loud cursing of a patrolman who had simply slipped over the ice that had crawled along its belly to cover the entire monastery. No real reason to panic.  
  
His eyes focused over the light tapping sound, like the rolling of impatient fingers, along the glass. The window had opened in the frost, its old hinges knocked loose from the swirling snow. His room, thankfully, hadn’t yet welcomed any physical snow inside of it, but even the air smelled of the stuff: that sharp, crisp, lingering wave of cold, cold, _ cold. _ _  
_  
His left leg felt entirely numb. He had shifted roughly in his sleep and he had exposed it straight into the cold air, unfeeling of his screaming nerves until the moment he finally awoke.  
  
He’d fallen asleep with his bedroom window open. Again.  
  
He turned over, sheets grasping over him like too many hands, and he peered towards his bedroom’s door. Something small was sticking out from under its edge. And, a lazy orange shadow was murmuring a puddle of light beneath it, like a signal to open it up and check. He realized at once what it all meant, and, his second thought tripped soon after it: the uncomfortable acknowledgement that he would be late again. Again.  
  
Finally, the unwanted, impulsive thought arrived before he could shove it away: _ He didn’t want to see anyone tonight. _  
  
Dorothea had slipped her scarlet panties under his door, a literal red lettered invitation to join her tonight, and Sylvain pushed himself up along his mattress, like he had no choice but to gratify her calling. She probably loved how cold it had gotten. The sudden hoarfrost littered nearly every glass window of Garreg Mach with pearl-round fingertips from passersby that wanted to touch the glittering snow. Dorothea had _ squealed _ and leapt around theatrically, excitedly alongside Hilda and Ingrid at the mere sight of just...snow. Sylvain had grown up in snow; his lungs were snow, his bones were snow...it really wasn’t that magical or special.  
  
Still, Dorothea, she was a thrill seeker, that girl. She liked the extremes of everything in between the seasons. The sweltering, pulse-thudding heat of the summer that made Sylvain just melt into a ball, sweaty and miserable and drained by just breathing the air, and, of course, the thick blanket of snow that now smothered the entire keep, and how she had mentioned that it only made her want to be together more often, way more often, togetherness in words, fingers, tongues, the shrill violence of their bodies intertwined beneath too many unbreathable blankets.  
  
Sylvain pulled on dark trousers, a matching undershirt, and picked up the roughly patched up war-coat from off of its peg nailed to the back of his bedroom door. It was padded with sheep’s fleece, yellowing and fading along the inside, but the neck was still plush with thick woolly wolves’ fur, and honestly, the worst part about walking through snow, to Sylvain anyways, was if his neck and hands went too cold. He didn’t really care about the rest of his body.  
  
He really didn’t care about any bit of himself, lately.  
  
He looped the thin cloth around his pointer finger and slid them into his war coat's pocket.  
  
So, Dorothea wanted him for a late night call in the middle of a snow storm.  
  
He supposed there were worse ways to die. He just really couldn’t think of any right now.

* * *

  
Sylvain sat along the edge of her bed and waited. He kept his palms open, waiting for her, loosely resting over his thighs. She made a very prominent example that she wanted this to be all about her tonight.  
  
She _ did _ like to perform for him, after all. It was in her blood, to be a star, a singer, a primadonna. Sylvain usually lived for this moment. His damn mouth would water in sheer anticipation of her door opening to let him in—but all he seemed to care about was the fact that his leg still was prickling with numb nerves, and it pissed him off to no end.  
  
Dorothea’s green eyes looked over him with an air of superiority, their glinting cut-glass gaze, ponderous, as she considered him through the thin crack of her bedroom door. “I’m afraid I asked for a gentleman; all I see here is street-rat with red hair.”  
  
Sylvain blinked back her. First in confusion, and then...acceptance.  
  
That’s right. She wanted to do this role-play. Damn. He’d forgotten. He hadn’t prepared at all for it and she had only bitched at him for three weeks straight about getting his shit together, but he had forgotten it all. He didn’t bring his ruby necklace, or his silk gloves, or even an undershirt with brass buttons, and not their usually stubbed rough-neck design. He had forgotten to wear his father’s top-hat that he had proudly told her about for about two months now.  
  
And her eyes lit up like a little kid’s over that stupid hat; something about how, during her many performances, she had always wanted to wear one, but because she was a woman, it wasn’t allowed. Why didn’t he think about bringing the stupid hat? Sylvain wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember anymore. She had wanted this for months. Why did he….ah...because it was in those months that Dimitri went fucking insane and nearly broke Mercedes’ arm and…  
  
He sighed. He couldn’t blame anyone else for this now, could he?  
  
Sylvain allowed his face to flush a bright red. He’d really screwed this up. She was pissed; she was playing along, but she was already so pissed at him, he could feel it.  
  
He tried to keep his hands steady. They had gone numb during his walk and she wasn’t one to squeeze or warm him up when she had spent her entire night in her nice warm bedroom. Which was fine. Dorothea was so damn hot and eager and playful...sometimes too much, Sylvain thought to wonder. She could be so demanding too, like she had already sized up all of his mistakes in a single day and wanted to lay them out, one by one, in the way she moved her body—all slaps and nips and telling him he was worthless to her—normally, Sylvain couldn’t care, he wouldn’t care, why should he care, they were just pretending, she was just really into _ this side _ of sex and he was just here for _ the sex _ itself and…  
  
A pitch at the soft flesh of his thigh caused him to flinch back.  
  
Dorothea’s green eyes burned into the side of his face. He had remembered at least one rule. He wasn’t allowed to look at her until she had told him he could.  
  
“I asked you a question, street-rat. What makes you possibly think I’d want someone like you?”  
  
The words weren’t there. His call-and-response to give it right back to her. He loved to verbally spar with people, specifically with her—she was just so visceral and bright and sharp-tongued. It was hot. She was super, super hot, the hottest girl Sylvain could probably pick in the entire damn monastery, and she wanted it back, like, constantly, almost to a suffocating degree—her hands during sex felt like she was trying to find a way inside of him than actually just be there with him.  
  
“I don’t know,” Sylvain answered back. He didn’t recognize his own voice. It was like he wasn’t even in the same room as his own body.  
  
“Well, someone as stupid as you wouldn’t know. Fine. I’ll just have to find a reason myself, hm?” She had cupped the left side of his face inside of her warm hand and, before Sylvain could turn to kiss the skin there, she hit him with the entirety of her palm. “At least your prick still works as well as any man’s.”  
  
Sylvain felt his neck painfully jerk back the other way. And he was glad that the room was so damn dark and that the snow’s white reflection kept back a lot of the remaining moonlight, because if she could have seen his face there, low in the dark, Sylvain wasn’t sure what he’d look like, if anything, maybe he had tears in his eyes or maybe his hands had turned into fists over his thighs and the thought danced disastrously close that if she’d hit him again, he was going to hit her back.  
  
He kept his face away from her.  
  
The dull candled light of the room felt more claustrophobic somehow, uncomfortable, just too small and cramped, packed with stuff. Dorothea was kind of a...sentimental person. She kept all of the long chain of beaded costumes and stage outfits from her time at the Mittlefrank Opera House and her room, as it would turn out, was just a treasure trove from that old part of her life. It was littered with flowers. Wilting, dying roses and crumbing lilies and grey-out dishes of water she had yet to throw out. She kept all of her old school stuff, too, like the tattered old Black Eagles flag and, with a kind of strange twisted air of surreality, a portrait, one of those small, commissioned, perfect ones— of Dorothea and Edelgard.  
  
In the painting’s frame, Edelgard had her arm around Dorothea’s waist.  
  
Sylvain found himself staring at it without any real thought. But the way the foggy light flickered around them, it looked like they could be moving, a separate world, a different place where Edelgard was just a girl with her best friend, and they’d go do something fun and normal, like shop, or dance, or whatever cute activities girls did together.  
  
He wondered what Dorothea thought when she looked at that old, beaten frame. He wondered if she felt sad.  
  
“Okay.” Dorothea was back again. Her voice had this kind of incense-like quality that was all her own; it reminded Sylvain of narrow places with plush pillows, the way her voice fell into his mouth like smoke and ashes crunching under the hollowed heels of primadonas, thick warm walls of a breathing Opera House packed with patrons—the gritty, beautiful kind of scene that made up his childhood spent being a starry-eyed boy, captivated by the pretty dancers on a dark-lit stage. “I’m ready for you.”

He turned his head half an inch to look over his shoulder. Dorothea was tight against her own glass window. Against the snow, a pillaged half-constructed stained-glass figure of the Goddess stood, granting the power of the goddess to mankind. The white of the snow allowed Sylvain to truly appreciate her figure. The naked curve of her body shadowed the face of a saint, back and forth, back and forth, swaying of her hips as they moved, full, thick, clock-like, to a beat inside of her.  
  
She was dramatic as she as alluring, and usually Sylvain sweated for this moment. He couldn’t control waiting to get his hands all over her skin, into his mouth, the scent of her under his nails.  
  
But Sylvain still wasn’t sure how his face looked, staring at her, staring at him.  
  
“Strip for me.” She ordered.  
  
So...Sylvain did. He took off his coat, his undershirt. He left on his trousers. He imagined that she’d want to do that herself. She always did.  
  
He had memorized what carnal desire had looked like in the faces of older men early in his life, men like his father, a stern man, who made no secret to gawk his head along Fhirdiad streets to watch another woman walk alongside them in passing; a woman who was _ not _ his wife. And that was easy to give to Dorothea.  
  
But she was smart. Way too smart. And it felt like she was reading his face like a book, because she scowled now, un-sexily, un-romantically, and that fiery look in her green eyes reminded Sylvain of bottled poison.  
  
He smiled back at her, carefully, his teeth aligned in that charming way he knew most women liked. He practiced it now. It made him feel feral, sometimes, to pose this way, more like a statue of a worthless hound in hunting than a man staring back at a beautiful woman.  
  
Her green eyes burned like the final dredges of a forgotten whiskey. Dorothea, her weariness, her carefully guarded regarding of Sylvain’s every foul intention. He rarely could hide from those eyes of her.   
  
The facade was starting to crack between them. It wasn’t the fake-Dorothea that asked: “What are you doing?”  
  
“I’m...waiting for you, mistress.” Sylvain replied automatically. “I paid for you, didn’t I?”  
  
She moved—no, she _ sashayed _ over to him, that graceful, moving naked body wrapped in the ribbon of candle light and punctured by soft-snow fall. She was glistening in sweat already, and her cheeks looked freshly pink—and her makeup had started to smudge along her eyes, but he really loved it, because she looked so messy and undone and he could appreciate that, because it meant that when she pushed her mouth all over him, he’d come away covered in that greasy haunted tones of her possessive face all over his face, like she couldn’t control herself to not be without him. She looked impossibly sexy before him, sweating and maddeningly unwilling to come closer any faster.  
  
He could feel himself harden, thicker and hotter, inside of each heartbeat. He shifted back, uncomfortable to feel his cock already too tight, too much, taken to already rubbing at the inside of his trouser’s, but she hadn’t allowed him move yet, so he waited, knuckles now tight over the quilts.  
  
Her hand reached out again. Sylvain closed his eyes as she touched him. He didn’t mean to flinch away again, but she was hard to read tonight, and he didn’t want to be slapped again without seeing it coming. Or maybe, he didn’t want to see it coming.  
  
She placed her index finger under his jaw to lift his chin up at her. He opened his eyes.  
  
“You look sad.” A single nail punctured the soft skin under his jaw. “I thought I made it clear that when you come to me, you come to me wanting me, _ nothing else. _ I am not in the mood for any talk of some ‘girlfriend’ nonsense; you get what you paid for. I’m _ the songbird, _ and I don’t waste my time on fools that think they can use me to be anything but a hot, pretty _ fuck.” _  
  
Sylvain pulled his head out of her grasp. “Let’s just get this over with, then.”  
  
Dorothea straightened her back. For a heartbeat, it felt like the illusion had been shattered between them. “Excuse _ you?” _ _  
_  
Sylvain couldn’t help it; he sneered at her as if she’d been the one to fuck up. “You heard me.” _  
_ _  
_ At once, Dorothea pounced over him. She lowered herself over his lap, her long nails, tingling and trailing, their sharp edges holding the sides of his face. Dorothea was intense in this way; she needed Sylvain to only look at her, and her alone, even the room and the air and the snow didn’t serve to be noticed. She wanted Sylvain’s captive attention and she didn’t care what lengths it would cost her to make sure he couldn’t slip away.  
  
“Don’t be cross with me, darling.” Her voice lapped at his ear, wet and soft. “Or are you just ashamed you even came here?” She laughed, a pretty sound like a wine glass being tapped against in perfect measured rhythm. “That isn’t my fault, honey, I just know what you want. And I’ll tell you what you want.”  
  
Her voice then went straight to his cock while Dorothea’s hands moved to his bare chest.  
  
She gently laid both hands, palms down, like a prayer, over where his heart might be.  
  
“You’re just like me.” She whispered into the hollow of Sylvain’s throat. “You’re empty inside.” Her heartbeat was rising like the church’s ceiling, pooling open wider and bigger than he could possibly imagine; a heartbeat was merging into his own, over taking it, eating away the sound of living. “We’re just two lonely parasites, all alone without a host to feed us, circling around and around, eating one another until one of us is left dead. The thought of us makes me so _ sick.” _ Her lips smiled into his skin. I think I want you even more.”  
  
Sylvain allowed his eyes to close.  
  
He practically shivered in her arms, his nerves suddenly pulsing with the desire to slip so deep under her skin that he could escape the racing screaming of his thoughts, the bad ones, the dark ones, the uncontrollable feeling that made him want to walk straight into the snow, sink into it, and die.  
  
This was just pretend, but the line inside of Sylvain’s mind felt blurry and sick.  
  
The thought that told him he didn’t want this anymore was swallowed whole by the thought that told him, _ yes, he was nothing, he was empty inside. _ And she was supposed to fill it.  
  
She was supposed to make it all go away. 

He opened his mouth to allow her inside. Her tongue flickered against his teeth, interlocked with his own, and painfully, she pushed her powerful tongue, a singer’s weapon, deeper down his throat. He felt himself give a weak gasp to let air slip between them, but it was how Dorothea liked to kiss. She didn’t do gentle. She didn’t do romance. Her fingers clung around his hair like reins of a horse, and she shoved her face tightly against his skin, her hot breath to overtake every inch of his face  
  
Her legs were already slick with sweat and the hot curling warmth as she pushed him down across the bed. She hadn’t even bothered to pull down his trouser’s. She just unbuttoned the top and basically crushed Sylvain’s erection into her, first into the wetness along the soft inside of her muscular dancer’s thighs, and, finally, near-overwhelmingly, she pulled her body up to push him inside of her in a movement as singularly smooth as her dancing.  
  
Sylvain felt the hair along the back of his neck rise up as they fell backwards. The mattress bounced and Dorothea adjusted herself to ride him. Her hands now pushed entirely down over his shoulders, pinning him, and she moaned in that high, song-like way, and Sylvain felt himself jerk as she was, perhaps unintentionally, pushing himself back out of her, and the sudden feeling of his cock, squeezed tight, back into the cold air, felt near painful. 

He lifted his hips up to force himself back inside; again, Dorothea pushed back, and Sylvain realized that she’d was doing this on purpose, and he found himself instantly annoyed, because she had to make everything such a show, such act, and he just wanted—he just wanting to fuck, normally, why did he even agree to do this role-play with her? It was just stupid. He didn’t want this.  
  
He didn’t want to treat her like a prostitute; Sylvain didn’t even get why she would find this whole act sexy at all. It made his skin crawl at the idea of her wanting that, wanting him like their exchanges revolved around money or worst, social class, and honestly, they hadn’t even kissed yet— not the way Sylvain had wanted— not with any kind of real feeling— he felt like they might as well be two shadows clawing frantically, chasing after one another’s bodies like they were no longer their own. He wanted her body, her tightness, the smell of her heat, but he also really just wanted to get her mouth over his mouth again, but she was so high above him, nails now prickling into his chest as she pulled backwards, unwilling to lower her body over his.  
  
“Come closer, baby,” he murmured, a hand reaching up to touch at her lower back, to push her down over him. Dorothea just rocked again, a hand reached up to twist into his hair, and she pulled back, quick and hard, and all of the roots of his hair flared in a flowing wave of pain.  
  
He just wanted her closer and she was...punishing him. He wanted her breasts to brush against his skin, maybe even against his mouth if he angled himself down lower, but she made this low sound, like disgust, inside of her mouth, and Sylvain watched, somehow both angry and overly tuned-on that her eyes were closed—she wasn’t even looking at him now—and she rode him, bucking her hips against the length of his cock, again and again, like _ she’d paid _ for this moment.  
  
She twinged down against him, and Sylvain felt the thick, hot wall of Dorothea’s thrusting rush to tap, over and over, at the head of his cock, and he rolled back against her, his mouth sewed tightly shut, because he wasn’t really good at pretending to be someone he wasn’t in this way—having sex was supposed to be an escape, a thing he could do to not pretending any longer— no more burden of if he smiled enough or said just the right thing— once he was inside of the girl all those damn cards went straight off the table, and he could grind against her, hard and frantically as he ever wanted, like he could crawl into the sweat and hot and mindlessness of the pleasure and not think about the fact that he had woken up with the overwhelming desire to not be alive anymore.  
  
Her nails grabbed at his face. She had opened her eyes to stare into his, and Goddness that was _ hot, _ that way she was looking at him, it was like she really, really was there, looking into his eyes, and maybe she could see that he wanted her back, like really honestly, badly, maddeningly back—and fuck, he just wished she’d kiss him back— but she knocked a steady tempo with her thrusting, and Sylvain let his head fall back, as she pounded him into the mattress.  
  
He watched the lovely way her breasts bounced, a new detail that he could imagine for later, and he reached up his hands to touch them—but she had grabbed his hands and shoved them back to squeeze at the fat along her hips, which he also really liked doing, but there was such a furiously, bitter language to Dorothea now—and Sylvain, he couldn’t escape that pitying feeling, like he was just there underneath her, and the way she looked into him, she was looking _ straight through him, _ rocking against him like she could her own fingers, or anything else, just an object that she’d toss away but—  
  
She arched her back up, her long hair dizzying over touching lightly over his thighs, and Sylvain squeezed himself into her, fingers digging into her hips, like he could keep her here forever, pressed together so tightly and excruciatingly close that he would never ever feel lonely again—and maybe after they’d come together, loudly and breathlessly, she’d ask him to stay, because fuck walking back through all that damn snow, and then he could play with her breasts and he could lick up her neck and he could bite at those hot, pretty full lips of hers, and she’d open her mouth and say _ I want to see you this way all the time, for the rest of my life, _ and he’d say back to her—  
  
Sylvain moaned loudly, unable to escape the sound as she matched him, a strange harmony that he clung to. He just wanted to pretend, just for a second longer, end to end to end, that they could just be together and not pretend to be to strangers that liked hate-fucking each other.  
  
He was staring hard at all of her and it was hard to pick what he wanted to describe first. Her jawline was square and sharp and he loved when she half-hurt him to crush her cheek bones into his cheek. Her hair was wild and curling and thick and he felt like he could drown beneath its surface if he could just keep her still long enough. And, Goddness save him, her breasts, nothing was better than those, whether he could lick between them or over them, or bite temptingly at the bud of her nipple, and feel her muscles slither under him, arms and nails digging in hard into his spine, like she was trying to punish him for enjoying himself so shamelessly, like he wasn’t allowed to worship her so completely, like she was mad she’d even allowed him into her bed.  
  
Then, with a ragged gasp for air, she oragasmed, her body twisted hotly and wetly against him. Then, she...pulled away. Just straight out of his arms, and Sylvain, Sylvain felt himself hiss out as the sudden pressure around his cock was ripped away from him without warning, without wanting, and the pain crashed like a wave that spasmed and it swam up his nerves and into the base of his spine. He coughed into his shock, practically gagging, as she just rolled away from him all at once.

“What is wrong with you?” Sylvain snapped. He pulled himself up, too cold and too hot and in pain, clawing up straight up spine, and his dark eyes raked over her skin. He wanted to crush her against that wall and fuck her himself, with his hands twisted tight against her hair, her throat, and she could feel exactly how if felt like to be used like some fucking worthless Goddess-spited_ whore. _ _  
_ _  
_ “What? That wasn’t good for you?” She was at the edge of the bed now, facing away from him, but she had turned her face to eye him coyly. “I thought that went pretty perfectly.”  
  
“Are you kidding?” He hissed. He gestured roughly to his waist, his half-erected cock, twisted inside the quilts, and then back up towards the rage inside of his dark eyes. “I haven’t even come yet.”  
  
She laughed, throatily, like she honestly found it funny. “Poor _ baby. _ Sorry you didn’t get there fast enough.” She then moved, catlike, to crawl back towards him, on all fours, and her long hair tumbled around her face like the mane of a wild mountain lion, and she took him again, attempting to slide Sylvain’s erection back inside of her, but he completely froze, and he shoved his face away from her hungry mouth. “...Sylvain?”  
  
How terribly unfunny it sounded, that she was appalled he could reject her _ just like that. _  
  
“I’m...done. Forget it.”  
  
“Wait.” Her green eyes looked panicked. “We aren’t done. What are you doing?”  
  
“I’m done, Dorothea.” Sylvain said lowly.  
  
Her hand stopped. She was so close to his face and Sylvain, he couldn’t feel anything at all.  
  
But he stared at her out-stretched arm, and he saw it...seven perfect little circles, like burned marks, and, at once, noticing him, Dorothea coiled her arm away from him, crushed to her breasts.  
  
“...What are those?” He asked dimly.  
  
“They’re old. They’re nothing.” She inched forward again. “Listen.” Her mouth was back through his hair, trailing likely with the tip of her tongue, like she wanted to take the thoughts from his head and crush them lazily between her teeth. “So you weren’t in the mood for what I wanted; that’s fine. Sorry if I pissed you off.”  
  
“Well, too late. I _ am _ pissed off, Dorothea.”  
  
Dorothea’s face turned cold and pale in the snow-light of the moon. “Sylvain, I thought we had agreed to—”  
  
“I don’t care if we agreed to do this stupid act, Dorothea.” He just stared limpy at himself, how fucking used he felt, on her bed, in her room, summoned to her and then thrown away, like that was all he ever could be, again and again, for all time. “I didn’t want this.”  
  
“...Well...you didn’t say anything.”  
  
“‘I didn’t _ say _ anything’?” Sylvain turned, the full heat of his eyes over her face. “What is _ wrong _ with you?”  
  
She pulled back, further; she looked like he had actually pushed her back with the force of his words. “Yeah? It’s my fault now, Sylvain? If you didn’t fucking want this, why did you even bother coming?”  
  
“Because I wanted to see y—”  
  
“Stop.” She dropped the word between them like a swear. “Don’t even say it.”  
  
Sylvain swallowed, the sound thick in his throat. “I know you don’t want to hear it.”  
  
“You’re right,” her green eyes stare into him with a dark, bitter glare. “I don’t. And you know better than to ask me to be something I’m not.”  
  
“Rich. Coming from the damn songstress. Now you don’t want to play pretend. Is it getting too real for you, Dorothea?”  
  
“Hardly, Sylvain. I just don’t think I need to roll over and give in when _ you _ suddenly decide when something is real or it isn’t. That. Isn’t Fair.”  
  
“Okay.” Sylvain said with finality, but the words, the words were there, spinning around and around inside of his head, pounding behind his eyes. Goddess, his eyes hurt. Why did his eyes hurt so bad? It should be his pride that hurt, his useless prick that hurt, but he leaned his face onto the heels of his hands and pushed back against the pain.  
  
His head hurt so damn badly and he just wanted to walk back out into the snow and die.  
  
He pulled himself up. He was naked and felt like he had been brutalized by their sex, something ragged and wrong and raw, and he felt covered with it, sickened by it.  
  
He turned to face Dorothea. He wanted her to know. He felt sickened by her, by her words, by her sick twisted design to treat him this way.  
  
“I’m just not good enough for you, am I?” He asked her.  
  
“Get over yourself, Sylvain. I already told you, we don’t talk about nobility in here. I don’t care that you’re a little rich boy with a Crest. Sure, I was bitchy before, but things are different now.” Her voice seethed, low, tweedling, and then it sprang high like an assault: “And if you dare to imply that I don’t want a relationship with you because I secretly think _ I’m _ not good enough, you’d be _ dead _ wrong.”  
  
“I don't think that!” Sylvain found himself honestly yelling now. Yelling at her. It was like he could step out of himself, hit himself hard across the face, and step back inside again. Why was he acting like this? Why didn’t she want to be with him? Why didn’t she ask him to stay? It was so cold outside. And he didn’t want to be alone. _ He just didn’t want to be alone anymore! _ “I just think you’re holding back from me! It’s not fair! I feel like I’m trying to give myself to you and you keep shoving me away!”  
  
Dorothea snapped her head to look up at him. Then, she was standing, close and her fingers were in his face, pointing and threatening him far too closely, and Sylvain stepped back, back, and she followed, still in his face, and he felt like she was so close to pinning him against her bedroom door, and he couldn’t even hear her voice anymore, he just wanted it stop; he felt like crying, he felt like screaming, he felt like telling her he wanted to die.  
  
“—and you dare to tell me like I’m holding back?! That’s hilarious coming from you! You don’t even know what you want from yourself, let alone me, and then you come in here and you try to act like my boyfriend, and I’ve told you countless times that I’m not interested in anything like that and—  
  
The door hit his back, rough and hard, and the air left him entirely.  
  
“I was trying to have _ fun _ with you, Sylvain! That’s what I wanted! I wanted us to fuck during a snow storm and you’re looking at me like I’m _ trying _ to break your heart!” She looked desperately, absolutely devastated, and she continued on, her words fast and flying, “Have you had your heart broken before? All those rumors I’ve ever heard and it is always _ you running away! _ Do you have any idea what that _ feels _ like? When _ she _ just tells you _ she _ can’t possibly stay with you, and you’re suddenly not good enough because you weren't born to be _ anything good _ in this world, and suddenly _ you’re lost _ and all alone and _ she’s—” _  
  
_ She? _Sylvain thought inside of his head.  
  
Dorothea. Her fingers in his face, inches from his nose, and Sylvain stared passed her and…  
  
The portrait.  
  
Edelgard. Her arm around Dorothea’s waist.  
  
_ She. _  
  
Was... he a rebound?  
  
“She.” Sylvain echoed dumbly. The room seemed to spin around him. The shadows too dark and too tight to his skin, all curves like the shape of a woman’s body, like an untouchable picture that had suddenly stained every wall, every snowflake, every pillow, Dorothea’s lips, her body, her mind. ”What...she...you mean...you and...and…”  
  
Dorothea looked like Sylvain had actually struck her. She dropped her hands at once. She took a step back from Sylvain. Her arms then wrapped tightly around herself. She sat down, naked and vulnerable before him, upon her bed. “Don’t...look at me...like that, Sylvain.”  
  
The numbness in his hands, his leg from earlier. Sylvain now felt his entire body turn numb.  
  
“What,” his own voice shook, high and confused, “what are we, then? What do _ I _ mean to you, Dorothea?”

"You aren't _ anything. We _ aren't anything." Dorothea laid the words coldly between them. "In here, we are just two bodies, doing what two bodies are meant to do under the moonlight. But if that isn't enough for you, you can just leave me, Sylvain." She turned, and her green eyes looked as distant as the Etheral Moon. "But I'm the _ only _person who won't ask anything from you, Sylvain. You'd do well to remember that." 

Sylvain was a great liar. He could lie to himself, too. He told himself that her words didn’t hurt.

It was like he had remembered himself all at once. He was Sylvain Gautier, and he had just screamed at a beautiful woman. He had to make up for that. He could feel himself slipping into a new skin, a new personality, the stretch and pull of escaping the darkness in the back of his throat, the dreadful words that wanted to scream at her until he went hoarse.  
  
“Dorothea,” he tried to take her hand within his own but she jerked it out of his grasp. “I’m just trying to understand.”  
  
“The _ point _ is that we don’t understand each other, Sylvain.” Dorothea’s voice heated into a distant roar that took up space, time, meaning. “Stop. Talking.”  
  
“But you—and Edelgard?—you two were lov—”  
  
“If you say that name again, I’m going to throw you out of my room entirely naked.”  
  
“No. No, wait, you can’t drop this on me and make it my fault, okay? That isn’t fair! if you had feelings for the damn Empire Empress that's trying to murder all of our friends, I think that is a conversation we need to have.”  
  
She turned away from Sylvain. Her long dark hair was slicked to her back, sticky with sweat and spit, and when she tightened the muscles there, the long waves danced in the candle’s flickering like the intertwining bodies of snakes. “Get out.”  
  
Sylvain stared back at her in the dark, empty with disquiet. It was like her entire bedroom was falling down around them; no walls, no bed, no clothing, just darkness and the near distant pattering of snow that relentlessly beat against their bodies “I...Dorothea, wait. You can’t possibly mean that; it’s freezing outside, I need a moment to find my trousers—”  
  
“Get. Out. Now.” Three words hissed. She never moved her head. Her fists coiled into the sheets. Between the thin silks, Sylvain saw the vibrant, yellow teeth of a withheld fire escaping through her long fingers. “I told you; I _ said _ if you said her name again to me, you’d leave this room naked.”  
  
“If I’m some kind of rebound from Edelgard, I hoped you just tell—”  
  
“Get out.” Dorothea hissed. She wouldn’t look at Sylvain. She wouldn’t move. Her long dark hair covered her completely. If Sylvain really tried to defocus her image, Dorothea could disappear entirely into the darkness of her room. And Sylvain would be alone. All alone.  
  
All over again.  
  
“Fine, I’m going. Just let me get my clothes.”  
  
“No.” Dorothea told him. “Leave. _ Right now.” _ _  
_  
Sylvain’s voice went flat. “I’m getting my clothes.”  
  
But she...had started to cry.  
  
And Sylvain...he couldn’t take it. The sound. The sound of her, breaking apart, he couldn’t, he couldn’t, the pain inside of his chest and the tears in his eyes, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, and the darkness of the room was spinning and he was going to pass out if he didn’t leave, couldn’t find a way out, if he forgot where the door was, and he made his way to the door, sliding it open, and pulled himself out into the night.

* * *

  
Sylvain, curled into his knees, gulped in the cold air all around him.  
  
It filled him nicely. Cold and empty but yet not enough to drown in. It numbed him, too, much as it reminded him that he was naked, just outside of Dorothea’s door, and he kept breathing in, because his body had forgotten how, and if he did not complete the mechanical act of breathing in, breathing out, he felt like he’d just lay down and die without air.  
  
He pressed his face into his knees. He couldn’t feel his face against his own skin. He couldn’t feel if he had actually started crying or if he just wanted to cry but every nerve was telling him he didn’t deserve to cry.  
  
So he just sat there, ass cheeks freezing to the floor, and breathed.  
  
And breathed. And breathed.  
  
Until, another sound, beyond the exhale, beyond the snowfall, followed. It was a resounding step down the hallway.  
  
Footsteps.  
  
Sylvain threw his hands out to cover himself. He stared, point blank, right back into his reflection along the cold monastery's tiles, and waited. Maybe this wasn’t real. Maybe he was still back in his bedroom and he just dreamed he had hot emotionally scarring role-play sex with Dorothea, and he was actually just having a wet-dream turned nightmare.  
  
He’d check.  
  
He flickered an eye back to the man standing a few feet away. A man whom he never really had six words to say to, nor shared many interests with, and who definitely, definitely didn’t need to see Sylvain buck-ass naked at two in the morning, so cold and shivering, that he was pretty sure his dignity had crawled straight into his dark shadow along the wall and ran far, far away from the embarrassment of a life-time.  
  
Linhardt. His lean, tall shadow as he stood just outside of his own bedroom’s door. His long dark hair flowed down his back, much like a woman’s, and his clothes looked as neatly tailored as they had ever been, which was weird, because the snow physically hurt it was so cold, and Sylvain couldn’t get why Linhardt would wander around without a coat.  
  
Linhardt’s eye then turned to meet Sylvain’s. His dark blue eyes looked fairly unfazed, if not just as tired looking as they usually appeared to be.  
  
Shit. They’d made direct eye contact, Sylvain noted, and he felt his face practically melting off of his skull in shame, in fear, in his inability to not spontaneously burst into flames.  
  
“Sylvain.” Linhardt gave a curt nod. He turned to unlock his dorm room with the nonchalance of just passing someone casually through the hall.  
  
“Linhardt.” Sylvain answered back mildly. Then, he just stared into the floor. He couldn’t die from mortification, could he? _ Could he? _ _  
_  
Linhardt’s door swung open with a soft click. He moved inside and let it fall shut behind him.  
  
Sylvain leaned his head back against dry, rough wood of Dorothea’s door.  
  
“Forgive me.” Linhardt’s voice suddenly called out from the dark.  
  
Sylvain gave a little jump from the floor, his arms still tightly locked around his knees, legs pressed tight to the chest, to cover himself. Linhardt’s head poked from around his door frame and he blinked down at Sylvain quite seriously, like he had just remembered a chore he had forgotten to take care of.  
  
“You’re naked.” Linhardt continued. “Do you require some clothes?”  
  
Sylvain swallowed roughly. “Ah. Um.” He didn’t want to move. Or breathe. Or exist. He didn’t want any of this. Goddess, he hadn't even wanted to see Dorothea tonight. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just tell people _ no? _  
  
“Ah.” Linhardt intoned softly. His even, pleasant tone never really piqued into surprise, or indignation, or much of anything, really. The guy was just _ too _ passive. It kind of freaked Sylvain out. “Dorothea’s doing. I see.”  
  
Sylvain felt mortified. Dorothea had always made a point that they not be seen together in any capacity. They only got together in the dead of night for a reason, after all. Not that Sylvain wasn’t used to that, not that he’d ever complain. They had an understanding. They wouldn’t be seen together in public, or speak during dinner, or even make eye contact during battle. They weren’t a thing. He wasn’t her boyfriend and she certainly wasn’t his girlfriend. And they wouldn’t be. They couldn’t be.  
  
He wasn’t...anything to her.  
  
“Um.” Sylvain’s scattered reply wasn’t much of a defense but he had to save what face he could. “What makes you think she’s involved? I could have just, ah, gotten myself lost looking for Hilda’s door, you know?”  
  
Only one of Linhardt’s thin brows moved down along his right eye. It was a neat little trick. “No.”  
  
“‘N-No’?”  
  
Then, Linhardt’s impervious face shifted into a slight smirk. Those intelligent eyes were hard to dodge around, despite Sylvain’s confidence in edging out what he wanted from most people. Even Sylvain had to give him that.  
  
“Your lie is rather unfounded. Not just in the evidence that you’re sitting, naked, outside of Dorothea’s door, but you also smell entirely of her perfume.”  
  
Sylvain ducked his head to give a quick sniff of himself. He didn’t smell anything except the gross exchange of sweat and rest of the fluids that made up said sex. Maybe he could get a bit of that strange astringent smell that snow gave off sometimes, lost in his hair. What in the world was Linhardt talking about?  
  
“I sat behind Dorothea in the Professor’s lecture hall for an entire year so I became very adjusted to the heavy dose she applies over the back of her neck. She enjoys the usual undertones from the sun-dried anthers that are collected from wilting Lilly of the Valleys, as well as Forget-Me-Nots. I believe she has the bottles distilled in Enbarr but barreled in the basement of Mittlefrank Opera.” Linhardt explained at length. “I suppose the scent comforts her.”  
  
Sylvain blinked up dumbly at him. “Uh.”  
  
Linhardt gave a short shake of his head. “Anyway.” His long hair shook with the movement and fell back to drip over his shoulders, thick as a scarf. “Do you need clothes, Sylvain?”  
  
Sylvain looked down to see himself again; The pale, shaking, blurred reflection of his entire body—the outline of his shame blurred, how unrecognizable he appeared, this man that looked back up at himself, and yet how eerily normal it seemed, to see himself and _ not _ see himself. He really didn’t know much of anything anymore.  
  
“Yeah.” Sylvain finally answered back. “If you’re offerin’, I wouldn’t say no.”  
  
“Alright. Stay there. I’ll find something, I’m sure.”  
  
And Linhardt was gone. Just like that. A strange, distracted savior for this cold pathetic night.  
  
Sylvain felt himself smile into the warmth of his own arms. He never really thought much about the Black Eagle’s class, nor what in the weird reasoning the Professor had felt within herself recruit a handful of Edelgard’s friends into the Blue Lions but he felt grateful for it now. Before now, Sylvain was just appreciating the timing of the war, and had felt originally that Edelgard might feel the sting of her previous companions, disgusted, burned, _ horrified _ by her murderous plight.  
  
Well. _ Almost _ all of Edelgard’s old friends, anyway.  
  
“Here.” Sylvain’s eyes were suddenly plunged into darkness. The sudden drop of warm piece of clothing plopped over his face. “I cannot tell if it will fit you entirely but I can keep searching.”  
  
Sylvain pulled open the shirt, then a pair of loose-fitting trousers that came with it, into his lap. He felt the air being sucked back hard into his lungs to not be naked anymore. “You’re a lifesaver, Linhardt. Seriously.”  
  
“No, particularly if you leave in just those ill-fitting clothes and attempt to walk out into the snow. I am afraid I will definitely not be a ‘lifesaver’.”  
  
Sylvain’s face fell. “Uh. It’s like a turn-of-phrase? I don’t mean it so literally. But, you know, you’re not wrong.”  
  
Linhardt considered him for a moment more. Then, he just...left. He turned on his heel and retreated back into his dorm.  
  
Sylvain couldn’t even pretend to care that the conversation was over. He leapt to his feet and struggled ungracefully into the pants first, already feeling the warmth tight over his legs and waist. The cuffs of the trouser’s dragged along the tiles though and when Sylvain tried to study his reflection back from the balls of his feet, the cloth cut him off.  
  
The shirt, however, Sylvain couldn’t pull over the swell of his shoulders. He hadn’t thought about his back muscles before, if they were anything special, but he supposed all of his blank, mindless strength training, forced to swing the scythe again and again under the intense gaze of the Professor making sure he could pull his own weight, had managed to actually give him a wider shoulder definition.  
  
“Hm. It is as I thought.”  
  
Again, Sylvain jumped. He turned back to see Linhardt studying his chest with a calculated look. Sylvain could almost see the messy black-inked calculations of mathematics and errors, sketched out quickly and crossed through behind Linhardt’s steady gaze, Sylvain’s entire being suddenly formed into a diagram of a problem. “That shirt is too small.”  
  
“I could just do with the pants, honestly.” Sylvain said.  
  
He was just grateful to cover his immodest modesty, if anything else, and, you know, if he happened to die from hypothermia on the way back to his dorm, well, he couldn’t say it sounded like the worst way to go. Better than a sword through his lungs. Better than being burned alive by a warlock. Better than going back to his room alone, to sit in the dark and think about Dorothea, hating him, hating him for slipping up and showing her that he wanted to attempt to fill that emptiness they had exchanged for months on end.  
  
“It is freezing outside. A blizzard will be arriving on the ‘morrow. Surely you’ve paid attention to the weather growing so horrible, Sylvain.” Linhardt sounded concerned. Like. Like the kind of emotion Sylvain could honestly hear within his cool toned calmness.  
  
“Ah. Right. I didn’t really think about the weather before I walked out tonight. I’m sorry, you’re right.”  
  
“Come, I do not wish to speak too loudly in the hallway. Let's go into the dorm, I will find something better fitting.”  
  
Sylvain turned to look at Dorothea’s door. The golden handle. How it was locked. How he was seriously at the mercy of Linhardt to not freeze to death before the dawn. Sylvain felt himself give an easy shrug. Sure. More rumors. More eyes to stare and whisper. He could take it. It didn’t matter. Nothing really mattered anymore.  
  
Sylvain padded after Linhardt, glancing back only once to see nothing else move within the cold darkness, before he stepped inside and softly closed the door.  
  
He found himself standing over the thick plush rug under his feet, carefully arranged to fit the entirety of the floor. To his left he saw the standard desk given to each room in the Academy. A south facing window, much like the one in Dorothea’s room, showed off the back pond and the silver-faced moon that stared at Sylvain as if it, too, was disappointed in him. Then, the rest of the room, a bed that looked perfectly made and entirely unslept-in, little glass bottles and jars and plants in the opposite corner.  
  
Linhardt himself was sitting on his knees, picking through some clothing with two fingers in some detached unconcerned way.  
  
Sylvain couldn’t help but feel _ very _ concerned. He had wanted to disappear into the snow. Now, here he was, gross and awful and bothering poor Linhardt who looked like he’d rather drop dead than make small talk with anyone.  
  
“Ah, sorry. Linhardt. You don’t have to stress about it too hard. I can figure it out. I think I can remember some type of fire spell, I could warm myself up as I go along.”  
  
“You _ think, _ or you _ know?” _ Linhardt’s lips thinned out as he considered the imagery of Sylvain catching himself on fire with shaking, numb hands. “Attempting magic when one does not usually use magic is dangerous.”  
  
“Uh.” He felt minded by someone far wiser and it left him speechless. “Sorry.”  
  
He turned again to continue his search. Now, a rather unpolished amount of clothing was beginning to pile up into the corner of the bedroom with Linhardt’s quick discarding of every unwanted shirt falling at Sylvain’s feet.  
  
“Oh. How about this?” Sylvain held up the discarded shirt. It definitely seemed well-used, if a bit carelessly un-mended. He had noticed it nearest his feet when his toe had caught in its thin sleeve. “This looks like a shirt you wouldn’t miss if I borrowed it.”  
  
“No.” Linhardt said at once. “That’s Caspar’s.”  
  
Sylvain lowered the shirt. He could feel his own nails poking through the frail fabric. It couldn’t have been a shirt that Caspar actually wore anymore. It felt like it would fall apart at the slightest touch. “Oh. Sorry.”  
  
Linhardt held out his hand for the shirt and Sylvain offered it to him carefully. “Why apologize? You didn’t know. Besides, he would be upset if this shirt becomes any more damaged. You’ll far too tall to wear it.”  
  
Linhardt turned away again in that funny, absent-minded way he just seemed to graze through his days, unhurried but confident in his own tempo. Linhardt felt he did not have to change for anything. He wouldn’t even bend to the Professor, who had given him none too quiet of a lecture on why it was important that Linhardt at least attempt to defend himself in battle, that he could be seriously injured and she couldn’t spare a single extra hand just to mind him.  
  
Sylvain couldn’t help but to feel so much smaller here. Thin through, just like that old under-shirt of Caspar’s, wishing he could find half of Linhardt’s personal strength to not...care.  
  
Sylvain couldn’t imagine how it felt like to not _ care. _ To not want to care so fucking much that it was easier to pretend to like everyone than bother with the pain of rejection. The energy it took to tell someone how he felt. It never mattered. It didn’t change anything. What anyone thought, the way they thought it, if it was right or wrong, if being a scumbag playboy was all Sylvain could manage between their dejection and sneers, what did it matter? As long as it kept those hungry, greedy eyes away from him; those same eyes that only wanted him for the same damn reason his own father did.  
  
Sylvain realized far too early in life that being born with a Crest was much like not being born a real human. Nothing but a blood-tool for the next generation of unwanted Crest-born humans. And, he wasn’t stupid either. The complete disowning of his own older brother who hadn’t been so lucky to bare a Crest, so _ desperate _ to be loved, to be wanted back into the Gautier family that he would attempt to use an artifact that twisted him into a monster…  
  
A monster...Sylvain had seen one, too, inside of that unrecognizable person that had stared up at him from just under his feet, a parallel world where he would have been just as disgusted with himself, just as desperate to be wanted…  
  
Linhardt was talking.  
  
Sylvain blinked at him, the way his mouth moved with a direct, clarity of diction that never faltered away in nerves, or crumpled under expectation.  
  
Sylvain had missed the entire thread of conversation and he didn’t know how to pretend that he hadn’t.  
  
He really didn’t know this man at all.  
  
“Do you have a lot of Caspar’s things in here?” Sylvain found himself asking. He didn’t know why. He just rudely blurted out the question right over Linhardt's quiet murmuring as he picked quickly through more pieces of clothing.  
  
Linhardt seemed unconcerned by this. “Yes. I have known Caspar since we were very little.” He glanced at Sylvain’s face for just a split second, their eyes meeting in a strange clash, the way Sylvain felt his entire body tremble when his horse knocked with another cavalier. “Is that so unusual to you?”  
  
“Um.” Sylvain added uneasily, his smile slipping under the pressure of Linhardt’s bluntness. “I can’t say I have His Highness’s clothing in my room anywhere.”  
  
“Oh. You mean to suggest that Caspar changes in my room?” Linhardt considered faintly. “You misunderstand; he doesn’t wear this shirt anymore. He’s outgrown it despite his woes of not becoming any taller.”  
  
“I see.” Sylvain returned. He glanced back towards the small window of Linhardt’s room. How funny that all the walls looked the same in nearly every dorm. It was almost like he was inside of his own room. Or back in Dorothea’s. Sylvain allowed a snicker to escape himself. Here he was, sitting in a half-dark room with Linhardt of all people wearing too large of pants and struggling to find a damn shirt to wear.  
  
Linhardt was staring at him. “Do you find that funny? What I said about Caspar?”  
  
“What?” Sylvain said at once, surprised. “Oh, no, no I, um.” He trailed off awkwardly. “No, um, Linhardt. I was thinking of something else.” He felt so weird, like he couldn’t get a grip on control the conversation to be friendlier. What the fuck was wrong with him right now? “Sorry.”  
  
Linhardt’s thin brows furrowed tightly at their edges. He looked annoyed. “I don’t understand you.”  
  
_ Wow, finally, _ Sylvain found himself thinking, _ I can so relate. _ “Uh...what do you mean?”  
  
“This is the fourth time you’ve apologized to me without reason. I find it hard to determine what it is you want from me. Have I upset you? And, if I have not upset you, are you merely compensating for what someone else will not say to you?”  
  
Sylvain felt the color drain from his face. He blinked numbly. “I...didn’t realize I’d been doing that. Um.”  
  
Linhardt gave an exasperated sigh from his mouth. It reminded Sylvain of Felix, the weird similarities he’d found to connect two completely different men. “Do not apologize again, please. It’s quite draining.”  
  
To emphasize this, Sylvain watched as Linhardt’s hands lifted to touch his own face. He held his hands over his cheeks faintly, and he breathed quietly into his fingertips to comfort himself. Sylvain found it all a little fascinating. “I’ll have to check further into my dresser. This might take longer than I thought.”  
  
Sylvain averted his eyes. He felt himself sinking internally. This was everything he had feared about tonight. Bothering someone, annoying someone, just—getting in the way. “I’m not, you know, worried about it all that much. You’ve done a lot already so, thanks, Linhardt.”  
  
As he moved, Linhardt’s dark blue eyes studied Sylvain’s face directly, all while his fingers moved through the storage. Could it somehow be that Linhardt was so meticulous about his clothing that he could identify each shirt he owned from touch alone?  
  
“I...find silence relaxing.” Linhardt declared suddenly. “However, you seem uncomfortable. We may talk if you’d like. I have to admit, Sylvain, you aren’t what I have often heard you to be.”  
  
An angry laugh huffed from Sylvain’s mouth. He felt that grinding pulse return beneath his eye from earlier. “Yeah. Disappointing, right?”  
  
Linhardt stopped. Those blue eyes to search his face. Sylvain finally refused to fix his expression.  
  
He didn’t know what he looked like now. Linhardt’s eyes really were too dark blue to see himself in, like he could in Dimitri’s— a subtle trick he had often used to check himself at the door. If he always knew what his face looked like, if he could always compensate with his mouth or his eyes, then what he felt inside, what he failed to truly feel, then he couldn’t hate himself for hiding, for not burdening someone else with all of his failings.  
  
“You _ are _ upset.” Linhardt blinked at him with a jarred curiosity. “Have I upset you? If so, I immediately apologize. Caspar says that I do not think closely enough about what I say when I speak too directly towards others but he misunderstands. I am only saying exactly what I am thinking. I do not have the energy to explain myself a second time.”  
  
_ Am I upset? _ Sylvain found himself staring at the rug again. He could hear his old man, so upset at the politeness of not making eye contact while speaking with another noble. It felt...good.  
  
Sylvain also found that he did not wish to speak. He felt like he didn’t have to. He didn’t have to say a damn thing and that was that. He talked so much. He talked all the time. He was tired of it. He was tired of words. He was tired of his reflection. He was tired of Dorothea. He was just really tired of waking up.  
  
Linhardt had gone back to his digging. His blue eyes rapidly moved across each shirt in a flawless single line of distinction. Sylvain suddenly found himself again, seated along the floor of Linhardt’s room, and his eyes fell along Caspar’s old shirt again, the delicate way Linhardt had laid it over his quilts...  
  
Sylvain had done something similar, once, with Dorothea’s panties, and yeah, while it wasn’t exactly the most innocent thing to lay along his bed, it was because he had actually just missed her, and it was all he had, and it was all he could really do to get her scent along his sheets—and not necessarily the way her scent could fill Sylvain’s nose when he pressed his face between her opened legs— but just her skin. Just her, in general.  
  
He looked over at Linhardt once more. He tried to think of the last time he’d seen Caspar hanging out around the monastery but he couldn’t. Had Caspar been issued away on a scouting mission somewhere?  
  
A thick bundle of cloth was suddenly shoved against Sylvain’s nose and he jerked back.  
  
“This one.” Linhardt offered the shirt out to Sylvain blindly. “This one should fit you, it is sheep’s wool along the inside, so I feel comfortable that you will be able to return back to your room against the winds coming in.”  
  
Sylvain weighed the warm shirt inside of his hands, then, without a second to lose, he pulled it over his head. It was still a little tight, but, damn, it was so _ warm. _  
  
“So…” Sylvain began awkwardly. He felt like he couldn’t just grab the shirt and leave...he...owed Linhardt...something...he guessed. So, there he was, forced to pick at the most obvious topic, the damn weather, and his lady mother would have _ wept _ to see him so tact-less. “What were you doing out so late in this kind’a snow?”  
  
Linhardt had decided to sit in a chair near his desk. He lifted his leg to drape loosely over his opposite leg, his hands collected neatly over his knees. He turned his face away from Sylvain, his eyes towards the window. He looked quite refined just sitting there, not really doing anything, and Sylvain wondered if he just had a natural ease to consistently act as he wanted, to do whatever he wanted. Sylvain had taught himself over twenty different ways to sit depending on what he needed. Right now, he couldn’t remember one of them.  
  
Linhardt lifted an arm to the desk and rested his chin over it. “Did you know that the pond outside has frozen over?”  
  
Sylvain hadn’t expected his question to be answered with a question. “No. I hadn’t. Is that where you were?”  
  
“I like fishing.” Linhardt returned simply. “I can’t fish now, obviously, but it is just a habit to be somewhere when I feel restless.”  
  
“Restless?” Sylvain’s red brows rose up playfully. “I didn’t know such a word would be in your vocabulary, Linhardt.”  
  
Linhardt’s infallible ability to basically sleep everywhere was notorious during their school days. Linhardt, asleep during dinner right at the table, or near the library’s fireplace, or in the courtyard, sprawled out in the grasses, not a care in the damn world.  
  
Sylvain never paid close attention but he did find it quite funny that the Professor could look so frustrated to spy Linhardt, face-down, his long dark hair blocking out the morning’s light while he dozed, uncaring about her lectures on unarmed bare-fist combat. Once, the Professor had smashed a heavy tome right next to Linhardt slumped over position, right over the lecture halls table, and the entire class gave a collective laugh to see Linhardt, half-awake and terrified, fallen straight out of his chair to spill over the lecture hall’s tiles.  
  
Where, hah, he promptly went to sleep again, much to the Professor’s infuriated glare.  
  
However, it wasn’t so easy for Linhardt got away with being lazy all the time. Clearly he had more than enough thought and natural intelligence. He wasn’t incompetent in any way. Sylvain couldn’t help but to think that was the grace of not putting yourself out there. Linhardt remained a kind of subtle mystery that never gave to rumor or insult. He was just... there. And he was almost always accompanied by Caspar.  
  
Caspar was _ quite _ the character to Sylvain. He never stayed around too long but it was pretty well known that if Caspar was entering into a room, he’d sucked up all of the energy in the room with the loudness of his mouth and the catching dominating smile that he carried into every situation.  
  
They really had a kind of syncopated energy inside of their friendship: the thoughtful Linhardt who seemed to be in his own little world and Caspar who was yelling and shouting, excited, his passion for life only matched by Linhardt’s withheld lethargy to sleep the day away.   
  
It worked. Besides, for all of Caspar’s annoying habits, Linhardt had a knack for being the complete compensation for Caspar, usually when it was needed most, when Caspar’s endless effortless energy often left most everyone in the class winded and exasperated.  
  
He reminded Sylvain of a rabbit with metal fisticuffs on every limp— Caspar was so small and short and clearly was pretty annoyed with his inability to get much bigger— but whoah, he was a force on the damn battlefield. Sylvain had seen the smaller man take down _ three men _ straight into the earth from how fast he’d nailed them into the dirt with his _ fists. _  
  
There was a small serious part of Sylvain that wondered if, in his own way, Caspar was the most useful ally on the field. He was wiry, lean, and unafraid; he was _ dangerously _ unafraid.  
  
Sometimes, Sylvain thought Caspar could honestly match Felix in a fight. Felix, who by little competition was the best swordsman in the Professor’s entire small ragtag resistance. Sylvain did not consider the idea at length , but Caspar probably could defeat Felix, maybe not in a sword fight, but he could see Caspar’s unwavering tenacity to try just about anything get the better of Felix’s overly concentrated training and complete inability to improvise.  
  
Caspar _ could _ improvise. He was fast and hardy and never really gave away what he was thinking, plus, Sylvain imagined the sheer advantage of not needing something in his hands, like a sword or an axe the way Felix needed one. Besides, Felix’s blind spot wasn’t obvious, but if you could catch him off guard along his left shoulder at just the right angle, he’d buckle to his knees, and the fight would be done. That was where Felix held all of his strength at the upper half of his spine and that was what he guarded at all costs.  
  
Linhardt cut into Sylvain’s plotting.  
  
“I feel rather stupid now having gone; the ice is far too thick to break open.” His eyes narrowed for a moment. Then, he added: “Usually I would ask Caspar to punch straight through the ice.” Sylvain watched carefully as Linhardt’s entire demeanor lightened, that lifted Linhardt’s impassive stare to remember the memory. Then, the look was gone, replaced with his firm indifference. “I also imagine the fish are gone for the season. And I don’t like being so cold. It wasn’t a great idea all things considered.”  
  
“Yeah. I’m the king of bad ideas, so, I hear you.” Sylvain returned kindly. “Thanks, um, again, for the clothes. And, you know, not laughing your ass off at seeing me completely naked.”  
  
“You looked depressed.” Linhardt stated bluntly. “Why would I laugh?”  
  
Sylvain felt he would have laughed to see himself. He’d have laughed so fucking hard to see Felix in his situation, or Dimitri, or anyone, really. He felt his face gripped in stiff tension. His smile hurt. It hurt straight down to his teeth. He deserved it. He _ deserved _ to be laughed at. Why didn’t Linhardt get that? It was just human to laugh at someone else’s pain.  
  
“Earlier, you said you didn’t understand me.” Sylvain sighed, heavy and loud. “I think I’m the one confused.”  
  
“Confused? About what?”  
  
“Um.” Sylvain struggled for the words. Him. Sylvain. Struggling. “You’re just...different.”  
  
Something moved behind Linhardt’s eyes. Sylvain couldn’t be sure what to call it.  
  
“I see.” He looked again to the window. “Dorothea is an interesting person. I wouldn’t say she allows people to grow closer to her easily.” Linhardt’s eyes back to his face. “I would say you are rather different, too, in that sense.”  
  
Sylvain dropped his head. Even hearing her name hurt. “She...I’m not. It’s not.” He closed his eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”  
  
“Aren’t you two…” Linhardt’s mouth looked stern. Almost like a big brother, evaluating a potential suitor. Sylvain thought it looked so funny over someone like Linhardt’s face. “Dating?”  
  
_ No, _ Sylvain’s heart squeezed painfully out. “Uh. Does...sleeping together count?”  
  
“I would imagine that does, yes.”  
  
“She...doesn’t think it does.”  
  
Linhardt leaned back in his chair for a moment. His blue eyes took towards the ceiling, lost in thought. Then, he turned back to Sylvain. He stared steadily into Sylvain’s eyes. Then, he took a short breath. “Do you feel used?”  
  
Sylvain blinked. Did he feel used? Him? Sylvain? He never was used. He used others. _ He _ used other women. Men didn't get jerked around; That wasn’t how the world worked. _ That wasn’t what it was. That wasn't what this was— _  
  
“I apologize.” Linhardt eyes moved quickly away from Sylvain’s face. “I have upset you again.”  
  
Sylvain allowed himself a deep steadying breath. He exhaled through his nose loudly. “Don’t be sorry. You’re just stating the obvious. And if she doesn’t want to date me, that doesn’t make her a... bad person.”  
  
“I imagine it is hard to need someone who does not need you back.” Linhardt continued. “When I brought up Dorothea before, I hope you know that it wasn’t from a place of maliciousness. She’s a difficult person to read. She was very close with, well, Edelgard, before the war. I imagine this is hard on her.”  
  
Sylvain chewed at his bottom lip. “Yeah. I’m sure you’re right.”  
  
“However, that doesn't invalidate your feelings.”  
  
Sylvain turned away. He wished the entire conversation would end right now. He wished he had the nerve to stay that as bluntly as Linhardt said everything else. “Thanks for the shirt, again. I’d, ah, appreciate if you don’t tell anyone else what you saw.”  
  
Linhardt blinked, hard, confused, before he replied: “But I didn’t see anything of your—”  
  
“No, no, _ no _ , I meant about me sleeping with Dorothea!” Sylvain cut in at once, releasing quickly where Linhardt was headed, about having to see him naked in the hall, and Sylvain wanted that memory burned out of exist as soon as possible.  
  
“Ah. Right.” Linhardt added easily. His lips touched on a smile and Sylvain felt he had been played with a little bit. Who knew Linhardt had it in him to go for the low joke? Sylvain could respect it. He couldn’t have said he’d have passed the chance, either.  
  
“So,” Sylvain found himself swinging back at Linhardt. Two could play at the embarrassment game. “How about you? Any girls in your life lately? Anyone leave you naked in the hallway during a winter storm?”  
  
Linhardt adjusted smoothly in his chair, allowing his leg to connect his right ankle over the knee of his left leg. Sylvain held back for a moment to re-trace the image for himself inside of another memory: his father seated in his own steady, a contemptible look in his eyes that said _ what do you want now, boy? If you need money, get out of my sight. _ Defensive position, defensive posturing to take control back, defensive position to push the words away.  
  
“No.” Linhardt replied evenly. “I stay busy with my own work. Dating would complicate all of my efforts.”  
  
“Sure.” Sylvain added weakly. He felt microscopic under that dark blue stare. “Dating is just a distraction from the important things.” Linhardt was pretty good cutting off all the exits that Sylvain was attempting to take. It was easy to talk about girls and bitch about dating to nearly anyone, even to talk to Felix about girls sound like a better idea than right now, than stuck in a snowstorm, making small talk with Linhardt. “Like being at war...and all…?” Sylvain trailed off.  
  
“I agree. Much like avoiding the conversation that we are at war.” He paused and a rather delicate look took over his sullen expression. “I have heard rumor that Dimitri still unwell. Would you agree?”  
  
Dimitri. Sylvain felt all the air twist around inside of his chest. Now he’d really dug a hole. “Yeah. He’s pretty sick right now.” Sylvain fought to push the conversation back. He didn’t want to think about Dimitri right now. Or the war. Or his father. Or Dorothea. Or anything.  
  
Just...dead silence, please.  
  
Linhardt…said nothing else. He had turned, his back entirely to Sylvain without so much as an excuse.  
  
Huh. _ The nerve. _ Sylvain wished he had an ounce of it.  
  
He read the room again, careful to take in the extra details: the stranded island of paperwork stacked nearest Linhardt’s elbow. The connected pieces of dried flowers, pants, dissected jars of dirt and water and atrophying pieces of nature. Linhardt wasn’t a people person. That wasn’t a big deal. Sylvain could take a hint: it was time to take his stupid problems elsewhere.   
  
“Hey. So. I’m gonna go.” He went to pick himself from the floor when Linhardt’s shoulders snapped back, startled.  
  
“Wait.” Linhardt voice demanded sharply. “Sit. Wait. I’m still working.”  
  
Sylvain blinked. “Um. Working?”  
  
“Your voice is distracting, please stop speaking for a moment.”  
  
Sylvain grinned bitterly. “Heard that line my whole life. But fine, fine. Sure. Whatever.”  
  
Finally, after about a minute more of just listening to his own distressed breathing, Linhardt turned back. He lifted out a hand and within his long fingers, Sylvain spied the cold glass of a vial. It looked rather like the vulneraries the Professor handed out like sweets before a real battle.  
  
“Here. We spoke of Dimitri. I have been experimenting with diluting mild herbal toxins to alleviate what is commonly referred to in women as ‘hysteria’. However, this is not a condition that applies to one gender exclusively; I believe Dimitri has long suffered from this condition.”  
  
“What? Wait—you _ made _ this? How do you know it isn’t, dunno, poison? What if it makes it all worse, or maybe makes him physically sick?”  
  
“I ingest it myself to check, obviously.” Linhardt explained simply.  
  
Sylvain burst out into loud, deep laughter. “Is that why you’re so tired all the time?”  
  
Linhardt frowned, the muscles pulling tightly down around his jaw in a vain attempt to hide how insulted he felt. “No.” Then, a look of confusion drizzled over his stern face. “What is so funny?” At once, Linhardt held up the palm of his hand to wave Sylvain’s answer away. “Never mind. Your jokester nature is exhausting to comprehend. Will you take this or won’t you?”  
  
“Um.” Sylvain turned the vial delicately between his fingers. The liquid inside looked opaque besides a light hue of pink. “Um. So I’ll be honest, I doubt he’ll drink this. I…” Sylvain dropped his eyes. “It’s like a shot in the dark sometimes. Sometimes he’s Dimitri and other times...he’s just...someone else.”  
  
“Give it to him in secret, then.”  
  
Now Sylvain truly laughed. “That’s _ terrible! _ You really think I should do that?” His grin expanded widely. “Do _ you _ do that?”  
  
“If I feel it necessary, sure.” Linhardt deadpanned.  
  
Sylvain’s smile dropped.  
  
Linhardt, then, seemed to pick up the air of Sylvain’s complete sobriety, how uncomfortable he now appeared, staring up at Linhardt like the guy had confessed to murdering a man in his sleep. “Oh. Now I am kidding; That was a joke, Sylvain. No, I would never drug my teammates.”  
  
Sylvain, again, felt played. It was...kind of enjoyable. Not many people could pull one over on himself with such taciturn. “Linhardt, geez. I never would have guessed you were such a chemist.” Sylvain then looked over the room once more, the scent of cleaning supplies and astringent mixing glasses felt oddly... calming. “You ever consider becoming a kind of doctor?”  
  
Linhardt’s smile drifted. Something behind those eyes that Sylvain had coaxed out of hiding only swam deeper into the blue, far and away, perhaps never to return.  
  
“I know exactly who I am, what my skills can provide, and thusly I have no mood or time to contemplate combat or killing another.” He grimaced, the pain of it clean across his face. “Blood makes me ill.” He then returned to stare out of his small window, at the snow, lightly falling, before he decided the rest of his answer. “Maybe once this war is over I can embrace becoming a true chemist and help those that need it the most, regardless if they are apart of the Empire or the Holy Kingdom.”  
  
He met Sylvain’s eyes quite powerfully. “I will be frank with you, Sylvain. I take no side in this war. I find no pleasure in marching closer to killing Edelgard. She and I were never close but violence has always left me empty inside. I do not understand half of why it has become this way.”  
  
Sylvain felt himself nodding back, surprisingly empathetic. Yeah. That should be allowed, that could make sense. He hadn’t really considered anyone else’s point of view but the Kingdom’s, Dimitri’s, beyond his own nation’s.  
  
Goddess. It was no wonder that Dorothea looked at him with such potent fury, such ruptured unspeakable way to express how she still felt about Edelgard, lover or no. They had been friends. And now...it had been ripped away from her without perhaps so much as a goodbye.  
  
Was that all Dorothea could wish for now? A goodbye to close the gaping of such a wound? An idea slowly entered into Sylvain’s mind. Something spooling thickly through his own selfish depression: could he give her something to ease that hurt?  
  
“Funny to hear the old pacifist speech from someone whose best friend is out killing the Empire’s men, probably as we speak.” Sylvain finally added.  
  
Linhardt swallowed thinly. The sound crinkled the air delicately. It snapped Sylvain back to the present.  
  
“Caspar, he may be a touch…aggressive. But he understands this pain, too.” His eyes to the window again. “After all, many of our old Black Eagle classmates left with Edelgard. I take no pleasure in knowing they might die.” Linhardt sighed softly. The sound hardly seemed to make any noise. “However, that is neither here nor there. Caspar goes along eagerly with any plan the Professor agrees upon. That is one of the many differences between us, I suppose. The few times the Professor has ever forced me to fight I make it a grand effort to prove how completely useless I am.” His fists tightened over the arm of the chair. “I will never compromise in how I feel. I would rather die.”  
  
Sylvain took in the white harden bones that pushed against the thin skin of Linhardt’s hands.  
  
“Please don’t die,” Sylvain said nervously. “No one wants that, either. You have a right to defend yourself.”  
  
Linhardt’s hands stopped at once.  
  
“Ah. Well.” A hand then flew to touch at his temple. “I am not without my own examples of hypocrisy.” His mouth tightened and his eyes narrow into a splitting look of hatred, directed at...nothing. “There was a moment when I blasted open the chest cavity of a great knight that stood between me and Caspar.” Linhardt turned a half-inch away, now back upon the grasses of the boiling field, where his hands had torn a clean, visible hole through a living human. The man was dead before his knees had given out from under him.  
  
“Really?” Sylvain prompted softly.  
  
“I…” Linhardt was staring back at his bed. At Caspar’s shirt. Sylvain traced his gaze with an easy flickering of his eyes. “I heard Caspar scream out; I could smell the thickness of blood from a foot away, I could not stop myself in what I had done. I could not see him and I...panicked.”  
  
“I’m sure Caspar was grateful that you found him,” Sylvain reasoned gently.  
  
“No.” Linhardt said dryly. “That was my mistake. Caspar was actually uninjured. He ran back into the fray while I stood, looking down at a man who had died so brutally by my hands...he had suffered for no reason other than I lost my composure.” His eyes looked at his hands. “I am afraid of myself when I cannot rationalize my actions; I refuse to feel so out of control...ever again.”  
  
“Wow.” Sylvain added in brief wonder. It was so...impossible, honestly, to picture Linhardt’s blasting a hole through a man’s chest. But he understood the feeling. Sure, he and Dorothea weren’t allowed to be anything, but he always, always knew where she was from the corner of his eye, and he always, always made sure he could see her at all times.   
  
“I bet you feel pretty terrible when he isn’t around, huh? Do you know when he’ll be back?”  
  
“I was hoping he would return before blizzard arrives.” Linhardt gave an indifferent shrug. “It is hard to say.”  
  
“So...you and Caspar. You’re close?”  
  
Linhardt peered back towards Sylvain’s face. “Yes.”  
  
Sylvain gave an uncomfortable laugh. “This is usually the part where you tell me...you know, more details.”  
  
Linhardt’s mouth paused. He frowned deeply. “What do you want to know?”  
  
“Um. Just, you know, anything.” Sylvain found himself honestly feeling...better...and he couldn’t be sure why, but...Linhardt. He was an alright guy. “I could tell you a million embarrassing stories about Dimitri or Ingrid or even Felix.”  
  
“You have many friends.” Linhardt looked, for once, uncomfortable. “I’m afraid that my relationship with Caspar is perhaps the deepest I have known. And I would not wish to paint him in a negative light.”  
  
“No, no,” Sylvain felt himself back tracking. “I don’t mean like, gossip or something, I’m just mean like— you know, friendship things—friends do funny things and you make fun of them and they make fun of you. It’s not like...meant to be bad.”  
  
Linhardt’s expression closed. His face stared quite seriously away from Sylvain. “I see.”  
  
“I mean. Not to force you or anything. Uh.” Sylvain, dragging his proverbial feet through the uncomfortable territory of attempting to get to know someone. He was really off of his game tonight.  
  
“I...don’t like discussing him in this way.”  
  
Sylvain blinked.  
  
That look on Linhardt’s face. He looked...so familiar. Something like...dejection. Was there something more going on? He looked again to that shirt over Linhardt’s bed. It felt...intimate somehow. Different from a friend. Bigger than that, maybe. Wait...did Linhardt...did he...have _ feelings _ for Caspar? But how? Why? Was he...and Dorothea...to be with Edelgard to feel that kind of rejection... it was...could it be he…  
  
Oh.  
  
Oh?  
  
_ Shit. _  
  
Sylvain braced himself. He had expected his own reaction to be...unkind. He had spent his entire life in love with the idea of romance, in love with girls and their voices and their bodies and their laughs and...he never, not really ever thought about a guy in that way. The very idea felt so strangely unfamiliar to him. And... he never really thought about women viewing other women that way, either and…  
  
But Linhardt wasn’t a stranger to him, not anymore. Linhardt was patient. Linhardt was hilariously inept at social cues. Linhardt cared very deeply for those around him without wanting to take anything from them...Yeah. That was it, for sure. Linhardt wasn’t a taker.  
  
Sylvain felt his chest loosen in understanding. He had been a taker once, trained just like his father had taught him—but one day, he just...crumbled. He wanted to give anyone exactly what they wanted. When he pretended, when he gave himself away, they liked him. People liked him, and he liked being liked and being wanted. How did it all unravel away from him so quickly? He just kept giving and giving and giving and giving until there wasn’t much left inside of him to give. No one bothered to ask him how he _ really _ was doing. No one really thought to peer behind his smile or his eyes to see that he was…empty.  
  
Just as empty as Dorothea had told him.  
  
“Despite the turning of the rumor mill, I do not find you to be a stupid man, Sylvain.” Linhardt continued seriously. His dark blue eyes had overpowered Sylvain in a heated, direct gaze that refused to be broken. “You requested I not spread whispers about Dorothea and yourself. I would request, humbly, that you do not speak of anything that perhaps I have unwittingly implied. Caspar is not…” Linhardt paused. His teeth clicked nervously together. “I am happy where things are in my life. I do wish for an upstart.”  
  
“Look. I'll be honest with you, Linhardt, if there is one thing I know, it’s this whole dating romance love bullshit, and I’ll be as blunt as you have been with me. If you have feelings for Caspar...you should tell him. I mean, this is war-time now. He’s on the battlefield right _ now. _ He might die one day and you’ll have to live in regret.”  
  
Linhardt’s eyes moved slowly away from Sylvain’s face. They pooled into his lap. “That would not be wise.”  
  
“Why not? I mean. I don’t think it’s none too crazy to think he’d like you back.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
Sylvain flushed. “Um. I saw you two, um, napping together, once? Like. Geez, years go, now, I think?”  
  
Goddess, It all made _ sense _ now. He had seen the way Linhardt had shadowed Caspar practically everywhere. They eat every meal together, they trained together—or at least in Linhardt’s own lackadaisical way, where he stared at Caspar and offered his own thoughts to his form, without needing it actually move himself from his spot along the bench. And...Sylvain wanted to earnestly laugh at how _ obvious _ it really was now: he’d accidentally spotted Caspar asleep once in Linhardt’s lap.  
  
It had thrown Sylvain for a loop at the time; he had been carrying water buckets for Hilda after she’d tricked him into doing her own damn chores for her, because of course he’d fall for her buttering him up like a complete sucker, and he’d been filling buckets up by the fishing pond nearest the bathing houses when he had spotted the pair.  
  
It seemed more unusual to see Caspar _ asleep _ than it was to see Linhardt nearby. Caspar had this unrivaled, palpable energy that widely threw him into every situation without a moment’s hesitation. To see Caspar still was odd. But, it made sense, Sylvain had supposed then, that even Caspar could burn out. And with the lazy, uncaring way Linhardt sprawled out everywhere, Sylvain had just thought that, in his sleep, Caspar had curled into Linhardt’s lap in some funny, accidental way that happened when two people slept close.  
  
But he felt...invasive, watching them, almost embarrassed, not to see an awkward moment between two men but—the way it felt weird to see a couple necking in the shadows, like something that you weren’t meant to really see.  
  
And...there was the telling detail of Linhardt’s fingers carefully soothing through the Caspar’s short-cut hair, this natural unhurried way of just touching someone with a second thought.  
  
“How do I, uh, put this as bluntly as you? Um, my guy friends don’t sleep in each others laps; Like, I talk a lot with my hands, right? And sometimes I’ll forget that I get way too close to people when I talk, and I think one time I accidentally smacked Felix’s like, twice in the shoulder? Just because I was talking about something I stupidly excited about, and he looked at me like he wanted to take a spoon from the dining hall and _ slowly _ rip out my eyes. That’s kind of what it’s normally like?” Sylvain then softened his words. He wanted Linhardt to know he meant it when he said: “What you two have...it’s special. I think he might feel the same way.”  
  
Linhardt paused. He considered Sylvain’s example for a heartbeat. Then, he inquired: “Felix’s brother. He was killed during the Duscur up-rising, correct?”  
  
Sylvain nodded stiffly. “Yes.”  
  
Again, Linhardt considered his words. “I always wished to know what it might feel like to have a sibling. I was born an only child and so my family line rests over my shoulders. I imagine Felix feels much the same.”  
  
Sylvain looked away. “Yeah. I had a brother, too, to tell you the truth.” Sylvain blinked into the quiet dark. “I had to kill him myself.”  
  
Linhardt looked genuinely distressed. “I am sorry, Sylvain.”  
  
Sheesh, why was he bring up Miklan now? While Sylvain had jittered with nerves that even daring to open such a private topic of conversation might upheave all of Linhardt’s calming persona, he only watched the guy withdraw further inside of himself.  
  
It made Sylvain feel...so completely disgusted with himself. What the fuck was he doing, anyway, trying to give out life advice like he had any right to speak about anything of value? He was just like everyone said. He sold love, and by the morning, that love disappeared. What would he know of devotion, of caring so openly for someone, you feel like you’d just die without them near you?  
  
“Sylvain. I meant what I said before. You are an intelligent man.” Linhardt’s voice darkened considerably, a strange melancholy rivering beneath every word. “And you know of Crests, having a major one yourself and our fathers knowing the influence of the circles well. What do you think would come from me attempting to engage in a relationship by which my bloodline would not sire another Crest-baring heir? There is nothing to gain.”  
  
_ “Because you aren’t a fucking commodity!” _ Sylvain snapped.  
  
Linhardt jerked back in his chair.  
  
Sylvain paled at his sudden outburst. He didn’t know what had happened. He just...lost it.  
  
He was losing it _ bad. _  
  
“I.” Sylvain stumbled. He couldn’t take it back. He couldn’t think of a reason. There was no way out. “I’m… _ not sorry.” _ His teeth shredded the apology. “I’m not. That’s such bullshit.”  
  
But Linhardt seemed...impressed. His eyes looked at Sylvain much like he had at once discovered a new, delightful form of magic. “No...you are right. It is a sorry excuse, is it not?”  
  
“Everyone is scared to tell someone that they care about them.” Sylvain said simply. “It’s universal. And it doesn’t have to be connected to having a Crest or not.”  
  
“Yes.” Linhardt considered faintly. “I say that. I say that I cannot go through with my feelings and yet...what I do not say aloud is that I have played-out over 64 different situations by which I tell Caspar how I feel and...there are only two that outlier themselves as…” he dropped his voice into a hush “...happy.”  
  
He then went on. “Outside of those two outcomes...I imagine a life where I would have to be married to a woman I could not love, who could not love me back, and never truly know what would be like to be understood so perfectly by the person I have known my entire life.”  
  
“Caspar has stolen himself away into my every memory. There is no moment by which I cannot turn in my mind's eye and he is not there, in some way. “ While Linhardt talked, almost by natural instruct, he had turned to stare as Caspar’s shirt along his bed.  
  
“I pride myself on my experiments and my intelligence. I know what is possible and what is _ hypothetically _ feasible.” That look Linhardt’s eyes. Sylvain could see it so clearly now. He was resigned, just like Sylvain felt inside, to the fate of being someone he was not. “I try not to dwell in thoughts of the hypothetical."  
  
“Besides. I enjoy my sleep and my dreams. Perhaps what I have in reality cannot be so. But no one can take what I see inside my head, behind my eyes. Perhaps I can be there forever one day. I wonder if that is what death is often like; welcomed back into the things you’ve always dreamed about. Forever.” Linhardt finally concluded.  
  
Sylvain felt the words smoke, like a slow-burning fire inside of his belly. He wanted to scream every painful, hate filled thought he’d ever had about dealing with being a nobleman’s son with a miserable Crest.  
  
"If it were me?” Sylvain answered darkly. “I would tell my old man to go fuck himself. Everyone that cares about Crests inheriting, and any miserable women who feels the same too, including my mother, but really it is just the entire affair of Crests. I hate _ them. _ I hate _ it. _ I _ hate _ having one. My own brother died _ hating me _ because I got lucky at birth to inherent one and he didn’t, and I’ll _ never _ get the chance to tell him that if I could give it all up, I would, in a heartbeat.”  
  
Sylvain couldn’t bother to care how undignified it looked, how childish, to sink his face down into his knees, to shove Linhardt and the room and the entire miserable night away. He couldn’t think of anything to say. There wasn’t anything to say.

“Is that why you want Dorothea?” Linhardt’s quiet voice seeped in through the soft tapping of snow along the glass of the window. “She has no Crest, no family. She could love you completely for you.”

Sylvain stared into the darkness of his knees. 

..._ Oh. _

“To the uncaring eye, it is easy to think that Caspar’s unbridled zeal comes from his need to compensate for being a shorter man, however, there is another truth, and that is that he also has no Crest. His strength is entirely his own design.” Linhardt’s voice softened considerably, the tone lingering into a smile. “I admire him for it.

Sylvain pushed his head up to meet Linhardt’s eyes. It was a little scary, being so cornered by their power.  
  
“I...hope you consider what I said. You don’t have to tell him today or tomorrow but...soon.” Sylvain continued wistfully. “There’s a lot to admire about you, too.” Sylvain remembered the pink vial between his hands and he lifted up to the dull snowy light of the room. “This was really thoughtful of you. I hope it..does...whatever it needs to do.”

“Yes. I often find myself stupefied by the idea of going into battle and so I sought to bring peace to myself, and thusly anyone else I felt needed the same. We live in a culture that pretends the efforts of war are over when the battle is finished, however, rarely does that pain leave a body. To deal with the aimless anxiety of having survived, there must be more options. It is not unusual.” 

Again, Linhardt motioned to the vial between Sylvain’s hands. “As I said, that very potion I have used before, if that eases your worries. Caspar uses the entirely of his arms and back muscles when he fights, and even he often returns to me complaining about how badly his arms ache. That potion dulls bodily pain considerably.”

“And he’s all into those herbal potions, then?”

Linhardt gave an uncharacteristically irritated roll of his eyes.  
_  
_ _ "Hardly. _ Caspar is an insufferable patient. He has always been too stubborn to take medication, even when we were kids. He believes that if his own body cannot heal itself, then he is simply too weak and he must force himself through it. It is a valiant struggle to convince him to lie down, or be quiet, or...anything of that sort. His father has beat upon his mentality that showing weakness means he is somehow lesser, and I…. Often,I just give up.” 

“Hah. I could so see that. Honestly? Felix is that same way. He thinks if he just pretends to not feel and then that is how everyone should deal with pain. It...kind of drives me crazy? But, it’s not my problem.” Here, Sylvain gave a blunt shrug. “His choice I guess.”

Linhardt seemed to...ease up at the conversational turn. His long dark hair turned to fall over his shoulders. It really was pretty long, but it matched much of everything about Linhardt’s disposition—including the relaxed, natural way he smiled when he talked about Caspar.

“Yes,” Linhardt continued, his voice surprisingly enthused. “What is unseen is my long tested patience of putting up with him.” He gave a slight shake of his head, his hair cascading with the moment. “Caspar is rather dramatic and it is stressful to know when he is truly hurting and when he just whinging at me. I often need to walk this careful line of which herbal I administer. Too much and he is all too aware I have tricked him and I am to never hear the end of it. Too little and he just stares at me with suffering behind his eyes. Which is often far worse. His tolerance for pain is quite remarkable for his size. His intolerance and refusal to feel any positive effects of my potions are _ doubly _ so.”  
  
Sylvain felt a smirk tugging the corner of his mouth. “I thought you said you didn’t drug your teammates?”  
  
Linhardt met his smirk with his own, worn, but very real over his face. “Caspar is more of a personal burden than teammate.”  
  
Sylvain didn’t miss that joke. He laughed, loud and happily. “Gotcha.”  
  
“What he doesn’t know ultimately helps him in the long run. Besides, it is only when he appears to be very much in pain that I resort to lying to him. It is not something I take lightly in my treatment of him.” Linhardt’s eyes dropped again to his hands. “I hope you’ll forgive me for being uncharacteristically talkative towards you, Sylvain, giving how your evening started. I believe I am just lonely and...quite tired.” He sighed, long and low. “I find talking this much to be exhaustive.”  
  
Sylvain tried not to stare too closely at his face, the polite distant air that Linhardt projected to make sure he not be analyzed. Still, it was apparent as the piling snow outside that Linhardt had been awake for far too long, his face pale and tired, the soft purple shadows under his eyes between his slow blinks. For a man that seemed to sleep his life away, Linhardt never seemed to get enough of it.  
  
“Have you slept at all since he left?”  
  
“No.” Linhardt honestly laughed. It fit his face well, his mouth smiling in an unguarded way that said a lot about how hard it is to try to be so carefully removed...that laugh wasn’t not planned. It was open and honest and was really, really wonderful across his face.  
  
Sylvain could relate so painfully it was like he’d found a brand new mirror to peer inside of. Far better and more humanizing than that shadowed reflection he had found within the floor.  
  
“Oh, here. One more thing.” Linhardt turned, opened a drawer from within his desk, and lifted out...a glowing flower.  
  
Sylvain blinked. He blinked again. Yup. That was a flower and it was glowing, a gentle radiating light, in the dark between them. “I’m sorry, what?”  
  
“I experiment with flowers and I have discovered that I can direct a kind of chemical into its stem that allows the flora to—”  
  
“Okay, no I mean like, why are you giving me a _ glowing flower?” _ _  
_ _  
_ “Do you require more?”  
  
“Why would I require _ one?” _ _  
_  
“Oh, I see.” Linhardt corrected himself casually. “These are Dorothea’s favourites. I imagine that you might wish to see her again, irregardless of your quarrel, and I think she would like to see these.”  
  
Sylvain held out his hand to pick up the flower by its stem. Then, he was handled several more, until he held a little collection, a bit like a torch of soft, delicate petals, inside of his hand. It was quite pretty.  
  
“Are they magic?”  
  
Linhardt again, chuckled quietly. _ “Everyone _ asks me that. No, they are just chemically infused.”  
  
“And they aren’t poisonous?”  
  
Linhardt laughed, harder. Sylvain grinned at the sound. _  
_ _  
_How...nice this night had turned out to be.

“Well, I have clothes now, and some magic glowing flowers, and you know, you do look tired. I'm gonna go, for real now. That okay?”

Linhardt looked relieved.  
  
“Sylvain.” Linhardt called his name and Sylvain paused at the door to glance back. “I am glad you are not as they say you are.” 

Sylvain couldn’t help but grin back at him. “Me too.” 

* * *

There was a light knock at Linhardt's door. 

Then it sounded a second time and ended in a third that did not try again. Linhardt had been too concentrated on attempting to correct his anatomical sketch of a pegasus’ wing for the fifth time before he realized he was being called upon.  
  
He pulled himself up from the chair at his desk, pushed a long piece of hair that had stuck to his face rather unattractively, and sighed out loud. He could not begin to feel ready for company a second time in the same night; he was hardly used to the new colder season, unable to require enough blankets and pillows to make the safety of his own bed as warm as possible. He felt like he was forgetting the most basic of plans, goals, scatterbrained and distracted by anything else than a task at hand. Now, further company was going to completely derail his thought process.  
  
He pulled open his bedroom door to very suddenly meet the body of another person who had fallen straight into his arms.  
  
While lacking in height, they felt uncomfortably cold, still in chain-mail and Linhardt recognized the hair and scent at once: a fairly light blue, cut short to the sides with the thickest length of hair ending at a fluffy fringe along the forehead. He also smelled of water, ice, that crisp brutal smell of the earth softly buried in layers and layers of snow.  
  
“Caspar?” Linhardt murmured. He felt entirely shocked. The snow fall outside had begun to rain down faster, colder, and he never imagined the Professor would force her army through such a storm without due cause. “Are you alright? What has happened?”  
  
“...I can’t feel my legs.” Caspar replied softly. His face was pressed into Linhardt’s chest. “Are they still there?”  
  
Linhardt attempted to step back into the bedroom but Caspar basically dragged himself, arms locked around Linhardt with the movement, and so Linhardt stopped. He reached behind him to grasp at Caspar’s hands, to untie himself from the stranglehold of Caspar’s arms. It was true: Caspar wasn’t a tall man but he was incredibly strong, and he often did not know the limits of his strength, and Linhardt felt he was in no mood for a spinal bruise. However, once Linhardt’s hands touched Caspar’s skin, he felt Caspar jerk back, a strange helpless yelp from his mouth.  
  
They broke apart at once. Caspar cradled his hands away from Linhardt’s too hot body. He felt he had been greeted with a lazy, drizzling of scalding fire over his hands. Caspar stared blankly where he was certain a burn should have been but he only saw the deep purple discoloration of his fingers. “... _ Ow.” _  
  
“Caspar, I am sorry.” Linhardt returned; his voice was gentle and sympathetic. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. When you crush yourself into me, however, I cannot be much help.”  
  
“I can’t feel my hands, either.” Caspar said dimly. “But damn, that _ hurt.” _  
  
Linhardt was at his side once more. He took Caspar by the shoulders to better study him.  
  
Caspar looked fairly fine, if not startlingly pale from the snow. His nose, however, was a bright puff of red from the wind-burn of the storm. He was careful to check his face. Caspar was never one for lying or for hiding his pain, that much was clear, but he often resisted being doted upon. His eyes looked bloodied and exhausted, but nevertheless, he lacked a concussion or serious facial wounds. A blackened bruise sat just to the underside of his jaw, far too close to his throat for Linhardt’s liking, to retell the battle story without the need for words: another warrior clearly had taken a cheap shot and Linhardt wondered if Caspar’s throat hurt, as well, but was just too numb to feel the ache.  
  
Caspar blinked slowly up at Linhardt, his pale blue eyes locking in a familiar unspoken conversation that went something like _ don’t baby me, jerk, _ and _ yes, I missed you, too. _

Linhardt found his fingers patterning unconsciously over the chilly ringlets of Caspar’s armor, his thoughts racing to declare hypothermia, or exhaustion, or to perhaps fly out of the door and give the Professor a stern piece of his mind. However, Linhardt did none of these things.  
  
Because Caspar had closed his eyes, and Linhardt felt his heart tighten, painfully, to rediscover the faint thin scar that covered Caspar’s right eye, a cut just below his brow, that lingered into the soft skin under his eyes. Linhardt hated that scar. He hated what it meant. He hated how much Caspar seemed to enjoy this kind of fighting and that he lacked all consideration of how it made Linhardt sick with fear that one day, he might never return back to him.  
  
...How that scar looked much like Dimitri’s. It was Linhardt, after all, that had cleaned the ill would-be king’s empty socket, careful and overly slow, to rid the emptied socket of puss and dirt; Linhardt was perhaps the most familiar with the entirely of Dimitri's face, uncovered by the eye-patch, and how deep that ugly scar ran to split his lid... much like Caspar’s, but with far bigger consequences.   
  
Linhardt’s felt his fingers begin to shake, not by his own intentions, but as Caspar’s body adjusted to the warmth of the room, no longer beaten down by wind and snow and slush. This shivering, too, reached his tongue. When he spoke again every word chattered through his teeth.  
  
“C-c-can you o-open my d-door? C-can’t work the k-key. Cuh-can’t find it, e-either.”  
  
“Your bedroom key?” Linhardt tried to think against Caspar’s shaking, caught between attending to his wishes or his body. “I believe it is somewhere in my…Ah.” He turned, spotted the messy uncleaned piles of clothing he had poured along the floor hours before. He sighed shortly. “That might take time to find.”  
  
“Th-that’s fuh-fine.” Caspar agreed.  
  
But then his knees locked, tightly, and Linhardt had to entirely catch Caspar as he tumbled downwards, a vain effort for the dead weight of a body frozen into layers of chain-mail and plated armor, but Linhardt took some comfort that he had purchased a thicker rug than what had come standard issue, and so when Caspar’s face puddled into the furs, he imagined that it did not hurt. And that would be under the insistence that Caspar could feel much of anything at all. He looked so painfully cold.  
  
“Caspar?” Linhardt forced his voice to remain steady. If his voice showed any type of frantic nerve or over-concern, they would only be locked into a long night of Caspar fighting him at nearly every turn.  
  
“G-gonna stuh-say here. ‘K?”  
  
Linhardt bent low to reach him. “That is fine. However, your armor is slowly going to shed its cold, dirty layers and you will ruin my rug.” Linhardt smirked at his own complaining; how right and normal the night now seemed, even if Caspar was a broken body across his floor. “Let’s take off your armor.”  
  
Caspar pressed his face hard into the plush of the rug. It covered his entire face, mouth, eyes. All he seemed to be now was a fine poof of light-blue hair over a white fur rug. Linhardt gave a small laugh in spite of himself.  
  
“...’K.” Caspar sighed out with his mouth now eating the furs. “‘Might jus’ sleep here. Don’t whu-wanna fuh-feel anym-more.”   
  
“You will be warm soon, Caspar.” Linhardt told him gently.  
  
His hands moved quickly to untie the leather strappings, tugging at wet dense cloth and, finally, to unlock the groves of the plate-mail. Linhardt moved deliberately, carefully, to slowly unfurl Caspar’s frozen limbs from inside. Once he removed the back piece, Linhardt realized, with a sharp panic, that Caspar had a true open wound along his back— a dark cut that now oozed in a stirred blackened smile of blood. When he peeled back the armor, quite a bit of Caspar’s skin slid off with it in a white, hardened layer of flesh to the back of the plate-mail.  
  
“Ah.” Linhardt’s breathing caught in his chest.  
  
He pretended to not see the blood. He could not faint. He could not faint and thusly leave Caspar, hurting and alone, to bleed out through the night. He breathed again through his nose, tight and low, and exhaled from his mouth. Caspar did not move nor even acknowledge what had happened, so it was safe to assume he was too numb, or perhaps too tired to care.  
  
Linhardt decided tonight would absolutely be one of those nights he had joked about Sylvain. He did not wish to watch Caspar suffer this way. He could not. He turned to his desk, selected a jar, wiped two fingers inside of it, and carefully dragged the ointment through the wound, his hands now shaking all of their own. Blood, dark and sticky, coated his fingertips, blood now back to the jar, blood now dripping to run down his own wrist...  
  
Talking, yes, that would be beneficial to ignore the bleeding, Linhardt decided, and he, without reasoning or thought, found his clean hand touching at the back of Caspar’s hair, to push his fingers through in some pathetic reassuring gesture that said more than he could possibly put into words, before he said, as casually as he could: “Did you truly walk through this storm, Caspar?”  
  
“I..fell a lot.” Caspar’s voiced muffled its reply. His breathing along the floor seemed to even out his shaking, steady as it was, but he did not lift his head. “Fell from the stupid horse the Professor set me on.” Linhardt watched Caspar rub his face, clearly upset at himself, into a slow shake of his head into the rug. “Think Raphael picked me back up but I don’t...remember the rest.”   
  
Perhaps that is where the wound came from, Linhardt wondered, but he said nothing. He just needed to keep talking. “Do you feel pain anywhere else? Your legs? Your hands?”  
  
“No,” Caspar told Linhardt, his voice weak with frustration. “M’ not hurt. Just tired. Stop it, Lin.”  
  
Linhardt said nothing else. He wanted Caspar to not feel the blood or the wound or his missing skin. He would pray for it. “I am curious to why the Professor would do something so incredibly stupid and wasteful as force her army to return in a snow storm.”  
  
Caspar sighed softly. “Dunno. I’ve never understood her.”  
  
“Does this mean you are back at Garreg Mach for the rest of the season?” Linhardt tried not to sound too overly hopeful. Often, the Professor would select a very specific, well-thought out team for her own war efforts, and often, it required those selected to be used for lengthy periods of time, only to return when they truly could not go on any further.  
  
Caspar did not reply. Linhardt decided not to push the topic. Linhardt always had to bite his tongue to see the beaten, worn expression of her ragged army upon finally returning home. It was like the Professor could not see what she was doing to her friends, her former students, and it felt...unnecessarily cruel. Few managed to hide their own resentment of it, perhaps besides Dedue unreadable face or Ashe’s endless, endless enthusiasm.  
  
Linhardt now had managed through the worst of it. He gently unfolded a clean cloth back along Caspar’s back to wipe the excess herbal ointment and, then he moved the clean opposite side up Caspar’s arms, gliding down to his hands.  
  
“Uh’, that hurts.” Caspar complained quietly. His fingers twitched faintly against the cloth, some sense of feeling returning to his muscles, blue and purple, but he did not pull away. “I think my hands are going to fall off. The Professor can’t take me again if I lose my hands, right?”  
  
Linhardt stopped. His eyes zeroed in over the floor. He could not think. Go..back?  
  
“You are kidding.” Linhardt said at once.  
  
“Um. No?” Caspar replied earnestly. “I’m not kidding, Linhardt. She said I could rest till dawn but then I have to go back with her. She needs me still.”  
  
Linhardt’s eyes burned into the window. He wanted to rip the sun out of the sky with his bare hands.  
  
“It will be dawn in an hour, Caspar.”  
  
“Oh.” Caspar’s voice felt empty. “Well. It was nice to see you while it lasted, I guess.”   
  
The room suddenly felt so much colder. Linhardt felt himself rising to his feet. He did not know what he meant to do but he suddenly wanted to see the Professor and perhaps start screaming until he could not find any more words to use against her.  
  
Caspar loosely pushed himself up. A low sound of pain escaped his mouth, and Linhardt had to look away from the way Caspar’s body shivered, unable to hold himself up, and he watched Caspar sink back into the rug. “Where...where are you going?”  
  
“I will be back.” Linhardt said to the air. “I have to go.”  
  
“Lin?” Caspar’s voice honestly cracked. “Wait, wait. Please, don’t go.” He attempted to push himself up again but he couldn’t. He pressed his face into the rug; a shattered fist coiled weakly into the furs. “Please..I can’t...I can’t get up. Please.”  
  
Linhardt found himself at the door, his neck straight to stare into the dark. He could not bring himself to look back. If he looked back, if he saw Caspar’s face, the fragile look of hurt, of being _ unwanted, _over his face, Linhardt would be unable to keep his composure. He could cry and he would not be able to stop. 

  
“Forgive me,” Linhardt said to the door.

* * *

The stairs flew passed him as did the many heavy oak doors and their golden hinges. The air was hot now, burning, and his lungs felt tight with fire while the world, somehow, in its turn, was white and cold and uncaring.  
  
The Professor was a fool. This was insane. Linhardt would find her. He would find her and he would tell her so. She was insane. She was unfair. She was perhaps turning into a monster the very same as Edelgard—

A man was guarding the war-room, the most telling sign that the Professor was inside. She had marched through a snowstorm and perhaps had not slept for days and days, and so she had asked for a guard. Linhardt did not understand the woman.  
  
He drew closer. From his crossed legged stance and the disinterested hunch of his shoulders, Linhardt found himself face to face with Felix. The man’s dark eyes sternly studied Linhardt. Linhardt allowed it for only a moment; he could not fathom what he might look like to Felix— somewhere between a person he had never once considered a threat in his entire life, and now, a newly hatched demon, suddenly mere inches from his face to _ dare _ Felix to stop him from getting inside.  
  
“Move.” Linhardt said without emotion.  
  
Felix’s dark eyes looked quite unnerved. He lifted his arms in loose surrender. He said nothing at all; a short, brutal, unsought war that ended in an instant potent victory. Felix pulled himself away from the door. He just watched Linhardt move forward, a fury of long dark hair and a look of murder inside of his eyes.  
  
Once inside, Linhardt began speaking at once, without caring or even a single acknowledgement of to whom he was speaking or the separation of their rank or perhaps any dignity at all. He could not control how loudly he was speaking or even how he felt to be saying every thought he had ever held back, but he was suddenly so impossibly close to the Professor’s face that Linhardt wondered if this was perhaps a terrible dream of Caspar being forced to fight again and again, to fight until he could no longer stand.  
  
Perhaps he had not used words at all. It was quite possible that Linhardt had completely lost his mind and had done nothing but scream straight into the Professor’s face, his teeth bared and his hands to take her at the shoulders so he might crush her arms with how much he felt, to be ripped apart slowly by the endless insanity and fear, to pretend to be removed at all times, and fail, to fail each and _ every _ time.  
  
And, then, without a sound, Linhardt felt himself being hugged.  
  
And her hand smoothed slowly and gently through the length of his hair. And he was still being hugged, crushed tight against the Professor’s chest, until all of the air that raged inside of Linhardt disappeared.  
  
“Linhardt.” Her voice was impossibly warm. She felt human inside of his arms. She was not the snow outside, nor an unfeeling, uncaring monster that would demand Caspar die, he couldn’t die, she couldn’t let this happen, she couldn’t _ let him die. _ “It is alright. It is okay. I won’t take him, if you feel that strongly.”  
  
Linhardt could not move. He had never been hugged by the Professor before. She was not given to such large gestures of affection towards any of her students, and in many ways, Linhardt respected her for remaining so distant and certain of her decisions. All except this one.  
  
All except ripping Linhardt’s heart straight from his chest by taking Caspar away from him.  
  
His face felt wet. He pushed his hands over his eyes in a poor attempt to control himself. “I will go in his place, Professor, if that is necessary.”  
  
He met her dark green eyes with his own and held his ground. He was not a strong man. He was not a brave one. But he would give that all up for Caspar. Anything. Everything. “I will obey any order you give me; I will. I will engage in combat and I will not hold myself back. You briefly trained me in dark magic during our school years. I have not forgotten the spells.”  
  
Again, her arms tightened around him, and he felt the answer before heard her words. “No, that is fine. I will be happy to leave him to you, Linhardt. I will take someone else, perhaps Felix. He has been staring at me much like an anxious puppy to do something all winter. Caspar will not rejoin my campaign.”  
  
Linhardt felt himself able to breath again.  
  
He rested his head against her neck, feeling stupid, feeling empty and selfish. He could not remember the last time his own mother had hugged him _ this _ tightly. Perhaps the Professor really did understand him. Perhaps she could see, too, how much he loved Caspar, far, far beyond how he really should just as a friend.  
  
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to hug her back, just as tightly. “...Thank you.”

* * *

  
When Linhardt returned back to his dorm room, he nearly panicked all over again.  
  
Beyond a few bloodstains along the white wolf’s fur of the floor-rug, Caspar was no longer where he had left him. Linhardt stole into the room, his long hair flying around him to see if there was any evidence to where Caspar had stupidly dragged himself off too, but, at once, he noticed his desk chair, the familiar shadow of a body leaning over his desk. Caspar. Caspar, somehow, having pulled himself up from the floor to sit into Linhardt’s desk chair...but that was as far as he had managed.  
  
Linhardt moved over towards him, realizing that Caspar had laid his head down on one of his arms and went to sleep. His shoulders rose and fell rapidly, endearingly to Linhardt, that even in sleep Caspar seemed to always be moving far too fast for his own good. He also wondered if perhaps he could not sleep more deeply due to the cold, or perhaps the pain.  
  
He touched faintly at his shoulder. “Caspar. What are you doing?”  
  
“I gotta go punch stuff, what do you _ think,” _ Caspar snapped back groggily.  
  
Linhardt waited for more. However...Caspar simply went right back to sleep. He felt himself smirk. “Caspar. Wake up, please.”

“‘Wha’, what’s wrong,” Caspar mumbled at once. He leaned back and a long hiss of pain slid from his teeth as his opened, skinless wound met with the back of the chair. _ “Ahh.” _ _  
_ _  
_ Linhardt forced himself to not pull Caspar into his chest. He was not sure how had managed to hold back for so, so long now. It was a pure habit to not get too close. It was the only safe part that he could depend on in a world of war and the impossibility of being loved back.  
  
“It’s alright. I’ve just returned, like I promised.” Linhardt swallowed nervously, his hands somewhere between wanting to help Caspar and wanting to find more ointment for his back. “I see you’ve moved from the rug? Was it uncomfortable?”  
  
Caspar’s jaw had locked itself in an attempt to not give into the pain of speaking, but he cracked open his eyes to look at Linhardt anxiously. “Was gonna try an’ go after you. But, um.” He trailed off. “Didn’t make it, I guess.”  
  
“I see. And I’m sure you realize now that your back is injured. I believe the wound is cleaned and uninfected, but any pressure over that raw point will be very painful.”  
  
“Yeah.” Caspar agreed stiffly. “Feel it now.” He looked over at Linhardt’s bed, his blue eyes clearly wanting of an unspoken request, but he looked back down at the desk in front of him. “Where did you go? Why did you leave me?”  
  
Linhardt felt his voice lower considerably. Softer, gentler. The way Caspar was just staring so dejected away from him. Did he honestly feel...abandoned? “I had to speak with the Professor. About you leaving again. You can’t, Caspar, you just simply can’t, I couldn’t let you.”  
  
Linhardt stopped. He hadn’t meant to say that sentence quite so honestly. He meant to say that he had told the Professor to let Caspar off of the metaphorical hook and had succeeded, but the words had torn out of his mouth without a second thought. “Ah. I mean. That is to say. You don’t have to go now. She has allowed you rest leave.”  
  
“....You did that for me?” Caspar asked quietly. His eyes still did not lift from the desk. “Wow.”  
  
“I would…” Linhardt struggled to form his words; he had nearly said _ I would do anything for you. _ What was wrong with him? Caspar was safe. The Professor saw sense. “Yes. I offered to go in your place but she refused me.” He allowed a sad laugh. “I am afraid I make a poor substitution for you, Caspar.”  
  
Caspar gave a dull nod of his head. He leaned back on his arms. Linhardt could not help but notice the subtle shaking of Caspar’s hands, the entire power that went into his ability to crack jaw and crush bones with his hands, and how fragile the movement looked. “You’re hurting.”  
  
“Everything hurts,” Caspar explained, his voice taking on that usual whine Linhardt knew so well. “But I can’t sleep. It’s just darkness and pain.” He blinked back up at Linhardt, his eyes owlish in the growing pink dawn, pale, like the snow. “Ya know when you’re so tired all the color seems to drain outta the world? That’s what I’m seeing right now.”  
  
Linhardt nodded...but he had no idea what Caspar meant. “Would you like to go back to your room?”  
  
Caspar quieted again. Odd. “Um...no.” He blinked again, sleepily, at Linhardt. “Can I just stay here with you?”  
  
Linhardt thinned his smile to be more...appropriate. “Of course.” He watched Caspar’s eyes fall back longingly towards the bed close by. “You may sleep in my bed, I do not mind.”  
  
“...’K.” Caspar agreed flatly. Linhardt resisted a laugh. Caspar without energy was rather easy to deal with. He wondered if perhaps he could convince him to drink a drought of a potion to ease off the pain. He began to stand and Linhardt helped him, supporting nearly all of his frame against him, as they moved shortly, and until Caspar curled tightly into the quilts, his small frame still trembling with cold.  
  
“Do you want more blankets?”  
  
Caspar took his head messily. His hair looked royally tousled now, still damp with snow. “Your bed is so much nicer than mine. It’s not fair.”  
  
Linhardt laughed aloud. “Perhaps if you took the time to care about what you slept with, you would like yours better.”  
  
A low whine answered pulled from Caspar. Then, after a short fall of quiet, Caspar lifted his head up from the tiny cave of quilts to peer at the floor. _  
_  
“Why are there clothes,” Caspar began to ask, but then a yawn interrupted the rest of the question. Linhardt had waited for Caspar to finish his thought, but when no other words followed, Linhardt realized that he could just answer Caspar normally.  
  
“Oh. Ah.” He thought carefully about how to phrase exactly what he happened to him; Sylvain and Linhardt did not run in the same social circles, as if Linhardt would run _ at all _ anywhere, metaphorically or not. “Sylvain visited me. He, ah, ran into an issue with a lady of the hour. He found himself in a bind, so to speak, so he is borrowing some of my clothing right now.”  
  
Caspar stayed surprisingly silent for a moment. Linhardt couldn’t help but think that he had simply fallen back asleep mid-conversation, face down into bed, but finally he rumbled: “Sylvain...he’s a cool guy. Never listened to the crap people said ‘bout ‘em.”  
  
Linhardt found himself smiling. “I agree. It was a pleasant conversation, all things considered.”  
  
Another low whine. Linhardt felt his heart dip, just a bit, at how pathetically cute it sounded. He then reeled himself back. He stood, picked up a vial, and now presented himself close to to where Caspar’s head lay along the pillows. “I know. You hate me. Please, take this.”  
  
Caspar eyes drifted open again. He looked, for once, like he might just take it without question. “Ugh…”  
  
Linhardt eyed him seriously, but his tone was quite dry when he said: “I’ll make you drink this.”  
  
Then, Caspar turned away, so stubborn and small, covered in those sheets. “No, you can’t.”  
  
“Can’t I?” Linhardt replied, and he gave a faint snap of his fingers; the sheets lifted into the air by just a few inches and Caspar jerked back at suddenly being washed in cold air that had seeped into the small pocket of warmth he was trying to keep so close to him.   
  
“Okay, okay, okay, stop, stop.” Caspar faltered softly. A bruised hand reached out, palm opened, to take the vial. “Fine, you’re such a jerk, Lin.”  
  
“Yes, I am entirely heartless.” Linhardt agreed softly. Another snap and the sheets dropped again. He heard Caspar give a soft, contented sigh, and then another sound, wetter, chugging the potion back quickly.  
  
“Here.” He coughed a bit, wincing at the taste. “Happy?”  
  
Linhardt stared at Caspar for perhaps too long of a moment. “Yes.”  
  
Linhardt then turned away. A blush had lit up his face to say something so bluntly aloud to Caspar. He was grateful he had long hair. It felt he could hide away in it. He moved back to his chair, none too far from the bed so he could keep an eye on Caspar, but a slight tug at the back of his shirt held Linhardt in place.  
  
“Ow,” Caspar sighed faintly, a touch annoyed. His nose wrinkled back in pain, still wind-burned and red. He had reached out an aching hand to grasp Linhardt back to him. “...Wait.”  
  
Linhardt felt frozen in place. He carefully untangled Caspar’s weak fingers from his shirt. But, then he did not let it go. He could feel his hands automatically flowing with white magic; the warm, deep kind that could already start healing muscles if just given enough pressure and time, and he moved to massage gingerly at the bruises along Caspar’s hand. “Yes?”  
  
Caspar’s mouth fell open at the sensation inside of his hand. He had forgotten what it felt like to feel so warm. A long sound followed, a sigh, like Caspar was melting into the bed. _ “Oh.” _  
  
It was such a small sound for someone as loud as Caspar to make. Linhardt felt himself smile again. “Did you need something else?”  
  
“Um…oh, yeah.” He tried to move his hand out of Linhardt’s hand but the effort only shook their hands and intertwined their fingers more. “Your stupid drug is making me too tired to think.” But Caspar then smiled, weakly. “‘Member when we were kids? How we took naps together, like when we were six?” Caspar’s voice then lowered into a whisper. “Could we do that again. Please.”  
  
It wasn’t a request or a question. Caspar’s voice trembled into the want of it, the pure need; cold and hurting and wanting to be held. Linhardt felt his heart skip straight out of his chest, up his throat, into his teeth, back down again. Linhardt couldn’t move. He didn’t know what it meant to say yes.  
  
“I...I don’t…”  
  
“I wanna cuddle with you, jerk.” Caspar clarified. His face was absolutely pink with embarrassment. “Sheesh, you gotta make me do all the cutesy stuff, huh?”  
  
Linhard blinked. He blinked, hard. “You...would like to cuddle? As in…”  
  
“Yeah...you know, like…_gah, _ um, that stupid romantic gushy...I don’t know?” He scrunched his nose up, his eyes closed, but his mouth was smiling, unable to hold back. “Will you just make me warm already?” Caspar hid his face again into the pillow, curling up into himself. “I really just want you to stay with me. Not in your chair, not doing work, but like...next to me. Okay?”  
  
Linhardt realized he was very much still holding Caspar’s hand in his own. He felt completely whole.  
  
“Yes,” he replied quietly. He moved, a free hand to card his fingers once more through Caspar’s hair, allowing himself the pleasure to appreciate that he could do it as slowly, and as often, as he had ever wanted to. “I would love that.”  
  
“And. Um.” Caspar looked down at his hands, still tight in Linhardt’s own. “Can you do that white magic thing? Like...on all of me?” He blushed, his nose extra flushed with color across his pale face. Even the rough pink line of his scar seemed to brighten. “You have _ no idea _ how good that feels. I’ve been, like, dreaming about it the entire trip in that snow. Just you. And, um, me, and being warm and you touching me with magic and…” he looked away. “Sweet Sothis, your eyes are _ intense.” _ He flickered his eyes nervously back and away again. “Can you just come closer, please?”  
  
Linhardt laughed. Caspar was truly his personal burden. He couldn’t be happier in his entire life to have Caspar asking him to be held. Linhardt smiled again and pulled himself onto the bed, careful to make sure he didn’t crush Caspar in the process, to hold him tightly against his chest, mindful of his back, his hands already warming up to hold each hand inside of his own.  
  
“Like this?” Linhardt asked him softly. Linhardt was glad he hadn’t started first with magic, but with herbs. Magic could only move the pain so far back, like an illusion. Real medicine and rest was the only cure for bitter work like fighting for hours and hours in the snow. He’d softly chanted a rather potent spell to rapidly spool the warmth straight up Caspar’s arms, into his shoulders and neck, where he wanted it most. Linhardt allowed him to indulge, just a little, and he pushed his nose into Caspar’s hair, smelling the scent of leaves and snow.  
  
“Yeah,” Caspar whispered back. Linhardt could physically feel Caspar sink the mattress beneath them, drifting down into it. It wouldn’t be too long now before he’d finally sleep. “Yeah.” He breathed out again, slowly, lingering in the sound, finally calm. “That’s perfect.”  
  
Linhardt smiled into Caspar’s hair. Yes. Yes, it was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An: WOW. FEELINGS, RIGHT, WHO KNEWWWW
> 
> Caspar telling Linhardt in his damn sleep that HE'S GONNA GO PUNCH STUFF is such a personal mood of mine
> 
> Haha, honestly. This was so much fun to write. I had been planning on it for a very long time and I am pretty pleased with it. If you enjoyed, please do let me know! And if you liked what you read, feel free to check out my other FE:3H work, such “Baby Pull Me (Closer)” which features even more cuddly sweetness and dramas.
> 
> please drop me a comment to tell me what you like'd, if anything, it always makes me day for forever!
> 
> And hey, hit me up on twitter @ https://twitter.com/OhKay58936663 where I love to chat to other readers, writers, and shitposters, like me!
> 
> Part 2 featuring emotionally stunted warriors go ice-stating up next


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AN: PART 2: the promise concluded: Sylvain gets his heart mended and emotionally stunted warriors go ice skating (featuring Hilda and Lorenz, Annette, Felix, Dorothea, Sylvain)
> 
> this fic has lowkey become so fluffy and funny and cuddly and a sickfic?? haha like, wow, 180 from the last chapter, Kay pls

* * *

“Lin,” Caspar’s breath was very close to his lips. “Think your hair is in my mouth.”  
  
Linhardt shifted up along the bed and tried to open his eyes. However, he discovered he could see very little. The room had grown very, very dark now. The south window looked completely engulfed in a wall of white. Linhardt found himself blinking at the strange sight of not seeing the pond outside. Had the blizzard finally arrived?  
  
The sun had been rising when Linhardt had laid Caspar down. Had they simply slept through the entire day? Was it nighttime now?  
  
Caspar was shifting around now, slowly, heavily, attempting to reach his own face. A weak cough slipped from somewhere near Linhardt's face. A tiny sound of wetness as Caspar pulled some hair from his open mouth, to push it away. “Gross, Lin.” He complained again. Caspar’s natural speaking voice was usually higher but this was a low whisper that came deep from his chest, his voice still ladened with sleep. “What do your wash your hair with? Is it still those mint-tea leaves? Ugh, I hate mint.”  
  
Linhardt felt unable to reply when Caspar’s body was still so warm, so very close to him. He looked up at the black void of the ceiling, a night sky without stars, cloudy and untouchable. Was he still dreaming?  
  
“Lin?” Caspar urged again. He was twisted inside of the quilts, but he had drawn up his knees to his chest, some unconscious bodily desire to stay warm, and thusly Linhardt felt pushed away from Caspar’s body, which was fine. He, too, felt sore from remaining so closely intertwined for hours. “You awake?”  
  
“Yes,” came Linhardt’s automatic reply. How funny that it came so naturally. Years of that _ are you listening to me, _ then the ever delayed, _ yes, Caspar, _ and then...how Caspar’s blue eyes were staring at him now, tracing the outline of his face in the dark. How different _ that _ felt. Linhardt was very grateful his blush could not be seen. “ What’s wrong?”  
  
An unexpected pause met Linhardt’s ears. He reached through the dark to touch at Caspar’s face, simply because he could, because he wanted to. Caspar’s skin felt very warm beneath his hands, and Linhardt tempted to not give into worry that Caspar had grown feverish in his sleep.  
  
“...Everything hurts again,” came Caspar’s wrecked, sorry confession. Linhardt felt his fingers brush back and forth against Caspar’s cheeks as he shook his head, a funny little personal tick of Caspar’s when he felt overly embarrassed. “D’you have any more of that stuff?”  
  
“Are you certain you want more?” Linhardt tested carefully. He quickly sorted through the spare bottles he had organized, their peeling waxy-labels and his hand-written notes, in the cabinet of his mind. He was certain he had a least two more bottles but he’d more than likely need to combine the two samples to be strong enough against Caspar’s uncanny ability to push away the comfort to accept the pain.  
  
“Mhm,” Caspar’s voice dropped again, nervous and sad. “...Sorry.”  
  
That little apology felt sharp, prickling, like a rolling sensation akin to the tiny teeth of thorns, his heart dragged over a rose-bush in bloom.  
  
“Do not apologize for asking me for help,” Linhardt whispered back through the dark. “You are...ridiculous, Caspar.”  
  
“...Um...okay.” Caspar whispered back.  
  
Linhardt smoothed his hand again through Caspar's short-cropped hair. “...I apologize. I did not mean what I said. You are…” his voice dropped, suddenly nervous, the very idea to finally say the words he had thought for years on end. “...very sweet. I know you do not wish to burden anyone else. I adore that about you.”  
  
“Thanks, Lin.” Caspar whispered again. He’d hidden his face once more into the pillow. Linhardt did not have to try hard to imagine Caspar’s face, pink and hot, unable to look back.  
  
Linhardt moved, untangling his long legs from the bedding, and was at his desk at once. He did not need light to know exactly where the bottles were. He judged the portions with his index finger pushed over the cool-glass, measuring out its contents patiently. He was always careful and overly correct but now he felt he could not spare a single mistake.  
  
“Here,” Linhardt offered the entirely of the jar.  
  
He felt Caspar’s warm fingers touch his in the dark, and, for a moment, Linhardt could swear the room glowed, faint and golden, like the flowers within his desk. Then, he blinked, and realized he had accidentally allowed an unconscious desire for white magic to flow through the tips of his fingers; the spell’s golden light danced across the walls of the room for a heartbeat, then faded.  
  
Caspar reared back, startled. “What was _ that?” _ _  
_ _  
_ Linhardt felt his face burn with the power of his blush. “...I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.” _  
_ _  
_ “Yikes, Lin, gave me a’heart-attack.” Caspar sighed out shakily. He had started to cough again, the force of his own lungs rattling his petite frame. Linhardt again, pushed away the instinct to make Caspar lie back down at once. He tilted his head back and drank the bottle down at once, his face, much like a stubborn child, gawking at the bitter taste. He handed Linhardt the jar once he had finished, wiping his mouth with the back of a bruised hand. “Gross.”  
  
“Your commentary is much appreciated,” Linhardt smiled, just a touch, into Caspar’s distaste. “I pride myself on making sure my medicines are pleasing to my patients, because their desired tastes offer far better value over their ability to heal.”  
  
Caspar glared at him weakly. Then, he coughed once more. Then, he dropped back into the pillows, clearly done with the conversation, along with Linhardt’s mean-spirited jabs. He had turned to lie on his opposite side so he could face away from Linhardt. “...Go away.”  
  
“This is my bedroom.”  
  
“Then go pick out a new one. There’s plenty.”  
  
Linhardt returned to his side, his hands once more through Caspar’s hair. He could not help but touch Caspar now. It was all he could think about. It was all he could want. “But you are in this one.”  
  
“...Yeah.” Caspar’s voice added softly. He sounded like he might be smiling.  
  
Linhardt smiled but said nothing more. He simply allowed his fingers to slowly move through Caspar’s hair, cradling the back of his neck, along the shallow indents that lingered behind his ears. He wanted to kiss the soft skin along the back of his neck. He wanted to drag his fingers over the shell of his ears. He held back when Caspar coughed again.  
  
“I believe you are ill, my dear.” Linhardt whispered wearily. He could only hope that this was just Caspar’s healing process, and it would not further be complicated by a cold, or worse, giving the hours he had spent in cold, layering ice, pneumonia.  
  
“Hm.” Caspar went to respond, but his eyes had closed, lost under Linhardt’s fingers.

* * *

Linhardt awoke again to Caspar’s left hand pushing his face away from him. The blunt strength of his fingers honestly hurt, overly hot and frantic, as Caspar tried to turn over onto his back in his sleep. An elbow met Linhardt’s rips as well. Linhardt straightened his arms at once to stop Caspar from turning over. However, much to his vying complaints, Linhardt continued to hold him back.  
  
“Caspar. You cannot lie on your back. The gauze will press into the healing skin and it will start to dry into the tissue.” Linhardt warned coolly. “It will hurt.”  
  
“Don’t care,” Caspar whispered back. His voice sounded far rougher than it had the day before. His breathing also had taken on that laborious, dragging tone, as one does when breathing becomes painful and harsh. Linhardt had pushed the idea away that Caspar could both become ill and equally have a bad injury but it was not outside of reasonable expectation. He just had sincerely hoped for an easier recovery.  
  
“It will hurt _more_ than it does now.”  
  
“Ugh, I don’t _care,” _Caspar said again, whining his voice over the final word.  
  
The next 48 hours did not go as peacefully as Linhardt had hoped. Perhaps it was because of the intensity of the blizzard that had entirely frozen the world around them, causing Caspar and Linhardt’s shared bedroom to feel overly warm and compact. Or, more than likely, it was due to the overly loud laughter that had drifted through his window. The sapphire velvet of the morning’s sky looked almost reflective, shiny as a dragon’s scale, back down over the fluffy-white layers of snow that still sank over Garreg Mach.  
  
Caspar struggled weakly. Linhardt had pushed him down, however, he eased up when Caspar pulled himself to sit up in bed, no longer wanting to rest.  
  
“I can’t lay here any longer. I’m gonna go crazy.” Caspar continued softly. His light blue eyes turned to Linhardt, out in full force. It was a troublesome attempt, however, when he looked so terribly tired and unmotivated to honestly move. Linhardt smiled at him and smoothed through his hair once more, allowing his fingertips to trail over his scalp.  
  
“Well, I’m not sure what you’d want me to do about that.” Linhardt stated crisply. “It is far too cold to go out and I don’t think you should be up and about anyway. Whatever it is you are looking to get from me, it isn’t going to happen.”  
  
That bothersome laughter again. Linhardt was quite certain it was Hilda’s. Her manner of speech had a bubbly-like ring to it, that often reminded Linhardt of soap bubbles and the rainbow-hued oils that accompanied a soap bubble’s thin skin. She certainly sounded happy out in the snow.  
  
Linhardt could not possibly imagine why.  
  
Caspar blinked as he heard the laughter. Within that blink, Linhardt could see a small piece of delight sparkle inside of his eyes. He turned slowly to stare out the window. Through the fine mist of the morning, the landscape looked pink and downy, much like one of Ignatz’s landscape paintings, with the layers of snow almost fluffy in their whiteness.  
  
Linhardt cut him off at once. “No.”  
  
“I didn’t even say anything yet,” Caspar whimpered.  
  
“No. You’re not going outside.”  
  
“I didn’t even _ask _anything yet!” Caspar demanded, but his voice gave out mid-way into coughing.  
  
Linhardt’s gentle pats to Caspar’s upper back felt... condescending. “Alright. I will re-clarify: _we_ are not going outside.”  
  
Hands tugged over Caspar’s face. Linhardt could not help but feel quite guilty that the bruises there looked so dark and blackened. “This sucks.”  
  
Linhardt allowed a short laugh. “I am sorry.”  
  
Caspar pulled his hands away. He slid his hand over the mattress to touch over Linhardt’s hands. He picked up his left hand, and held it, staring into the open palm. Linhardt allowed himself to slide closer. He nearly jerked back, a habit due to an inclination of not wanting to be directly touched, but Caspar had leaned his head to rest on his shoulder. His fingers mindlessly traced through the palm lines of Linhardt’s hand and it felt very relaxing. Why couldn’t they just stay here, just like this, forever?  
  
“...Can we just go see, you know...the others.” Caspar asked quietly. His eyes did not lift from Linhardt’s skin. “...Maybe...just for a little bit?”  
  
Linhardt felt himself sighing, loud and deeply. “Caspar…”  
  
“Please,” suddenly those bright blue eyes were all over his face, impossible to escape. “Please? Please? Please? Please?”  
  
Linhardt did not mean to melt under the pressure of those eyes, but between his hand being stroked, and Caspar’s happy little expression of want, it was hard to find the words again to deny him. “...Fine.”  
  
“Yes,” Caspar’s thin voice whispered out, dragging the ‘s’ of the word childishly, and again Linhardt laughed. Caspar’s hands closed around his own as he stood—swayed for a moment—but then found his footing. He turned to stare back at Linhardt, rather proud of himself. “Let’s go.”  
  
“Right this instant?” Linhardt dragged his question dryly. He really did not wish to be cold again.  
  
“Who knows how long they’ll stay out there!” Caspar’s energy was creeping back through the exhaustion of his tone, even if his rough vocal cords still sounded delicate and raw. “If I can’t skate with them, I wanna watch.”  
  
Linhardt resisted rolling his eyes. Watching his teammates lollygagging through the snow sounded rather unappealing when he could just go back to bed with Caspar wrapped around him. “...Fine.”  
  
Linhardt stood, wrapped Caspar in the thickest clothing and coat he could possibly find, and swallowed a sigh as he made for the door. Caspar’s hand was still inside of his own. He attempted to drop it but Caspar refused to let go.  
  
Linhardt felt his eyes burning into the wood as he spoke. He could not look at Caspar’s face when he felt such a dark, mournful shame slip into his chest, attempting to smother him.  
  
“Caspar. Are you...certain...you wish to remain like this?” He felt his fingers tightened, nearly painfully, to squeeze over the bruises of Caspar’s hand within his. “I…” he stopped. He did not know what he would have said next.  
  
“What?” Caspar returned. He stood alongside him now, a hand over the golden door handle. “Whadda’ya mean?”  
  
“Our hands.” Linhardt’s voice felt very small. “Do you wish to continue to hold hands outside of this room?” He swallowed and forced the rest through. “People are outside. They will...see us.”  
  
“Linhardt,” Caspar’s voice sounded so sincere. “Listen, I like when you fix me up and everything, but I want more than your hands, you know? I, um.” He paused. Perhaps he, too, was staring at the door. “I want you...like...all of it. I’m not gonna, you know, pretend we aren’t something.”  
  
Linhardt’s heart opened, painful and raw, but a warmth had traveled through the rest of him, a high ringing in his ears, and he worried he would not have the strength to remain standing. “I see.”  
  
“Do you, uh, not wanna hold hands?”  
  
Now, Linhardt turned to meet his face. “I fear I will not be able to let go of you now.”  
  
Caspar positively _ beamed _ at him. Linhardt felt as if his blush had traveled to cover his neck, his chest, pink and red and far too warm to be healthy. “Good. Because I don’t think I can walk too far without you, anyway.”  
  
“Ah, your personal crutch. Why am I not surprised?”  
  
Now, Caspar laughed. The sound was so beautiful.  
  
“Let’s go, come on, come on!” Linhardt felt his hand pulled, tight, and suddenly the door was open before them.  
  
_ Come on, come on, _ the words echoed inside of Linhardt’s mind. The acceptance to move. The acceptance to be loved back.  
  
The world looked bright, white and cold, locked together by their fingers.

* * *

  
“Linhardt! Caspar!” A female voice was calling after them. “You’re going skating, too?”  
  
They were nearly at the courtyard. Linhardt had forced Caspar to take his time, slowed down naturally by their connected hands. Linhardt turned, careful to help Caspar move with him. Much to Caspar’s word, their hands did not part, not once, not even to be so steadily seen by another couple. Caspar’s fingers did not even shake.  
  
Annette. She was waving and tugging exciting at Felix’s arm, how it was draped naturally around her shoulders, as they approached. Felix’s neutral grumpy expression looked softer somehow, as Annette looked up at him, her mouth happily talking and then she was pointing, _ pointing _ right at the pair.  
  
Linhardt tried to keep his eyes steady.  
  
He refused to think Annette of all people might say...something cruel...but then, she _ smiled _ , her bright red hair flowed prettily over the rounded buttons of her coat, and, of course, Felix, her winter-time accessory, with his dark hair tied up thickly against his neck. His dark eyes swept through the spaces between Linhardt’s and Caspar’s hands, and he, too, seemed...not to mind…  
  
“I am so excited to see everyone out today!” Annette continued happily. She had rushed forward to hug the both of them, as if they had not seen one another in a long time, and Linhardt chalked her heightened emotions to be akin to the way winter seemed to make everyone more naturally affectionate. “Do you both have skates?”  
  
“I’m afraid we shall not actually be skating.” Linhardt declared smoothly. He had expected Caspar to shove roughly at his arms in reaction, but Caspar just smiled politely at Annette and Felix, his face flushed by the cold, or perhaps his low fever. “Caspar just insisted that he wanted to join in with everyone.”  
  
Felix’s dark eyes rolled over Linhardt’s. They seemed to meet, just for a moment, and it felt strangely matched, a hidden look of shared exasperation that said _ oh, you got dragged into this, too? _Felix’s eyes then dragged over Caspar, and his brows flexed in concern, but he said nothing else.  
  
“Annette,” Felix minded her gently. He collected her away from hanging too roughly over Caspar and pulled her back to his side. “We need to hurry or Hilda won’t stop complaining about us being late.”  
  
“Oh Felix, she so will not!” She bounced back at him. She smiled back at the pair, her red glove waving hopefully. “We’re gonna walk a little faster, but we’ll see you both there!”  
  
Felix gave a faint little roll of his eyes as they turned to move passed the pair, but he turned to glance back. There was a small warmth within his eyes that said, _ things you do for love, right? _ before he looked away, his face already turned down to chat softly with Annette, her small frame bobbling under his arm.  
  
“They’re pretty cute, huh?” Caspar asked Linhardt. His face was turned to look up at him, hopeful and winded and already looking as if he didn’t wish to travel much further. He brightened to see Linhardt’s dark eyes staring into his own. “I always thought that—”  
  
Linhardt could not help himself. He reached his face down towards Caspar's still-talking mouth and kissed him. His lips felt warm and soft and, when he pulled away, Caspar’s face went pink with surprise.  
  
“Um. Was I talking too much?”  
  
_ “You _ are the cute one,” Linhardt stated simply.  
  
“Hah, K’,” Caspar giggled back.  
  
They continued forward. There was the safety of the stone benches that overlooked the pond, and Linhardt felt that would be a perfect spot to sit and watch the “merriment” of, hopefully, watching Hilda or Felix fall on their rears over the ice.  
  
They were greeted, loudly and enthusiastically by Hilda, who had attached herself firmly to Lorenz’s arm as they skated by. He haphazardly struggled back against her brute force that slid them, skates firm over the ice, to gently rest just a short distance away from where Linhardt and Caspar sat down.  
  
_ “Gooooood _ morning!” Hilda shouted; She was always so high energy and loud. Nothing really seemed to phase her, not bad weather, not a long day of fighting with her great-axe, and certainly not the fact that Caspar had leaned weakly into Linhardt’s shoulder, his face resting there, worn and content to just watch. “It’s so nice to see you two out and about! Isn’t the snow just lovely? I can’t believe something as awful as that blizzard would make such a beautiful scene!”  
  
Lorenz, from behind her, looked at Hilda with a hint of annoyance. However, his pleasant smile greeted Linhardt and Caspar, even-toned and graceful as he ever was, to maintain that noble charm. “What Hilda is trying to say is that she asked me to burn away the rough layering of snow so that we may skate; you’re _ welcome, _ Hilda, it was _ not _ a miracle of nature.”  
  
She giggled. She moved in her womanly sway to turn to give Lorenz a quick kiss to his cheek. “Sweetie.”  
  
Ah, so this was a ploy of Hilda’s. Perfect. Linhardt resisted frowning at her. He should have known. Caspar, however, just smiled, a small laugh escaping his lips.  
  
She quickly summed up their stance, and, with her hands planted firmly over her hips, she trudged through the snowy path, her face nearly as pink as her hair. “No, no, no! You guys _ have _ to skate! You _ have _ too!”  
  
Lorenz had brought a long-suffering hand to touch at his brow. His sharp featured face merely looked annoyed at Hilda’s rude and sudden demand of the two. “Hilda, not everyone needs to do exactly as you say, darling.”  
  
“It’s called a _ bonding experience, _ Lorenz, _ ugh!” _ _  
_ _  
_ Lorenz looked expectantly at Linhardt, his dark eyes blinking sympathetically. “Please, ignore her. She is just excited.”  
  
“I would be, too,” Caspar replied softly. “But is it okay if we just watch?”  
  
“Certainly.” Lorenz said back. He smiled gently at Caspar, took Hilda’s hand, and promptly pulled her back onto the ice. Her girlish cry of surprise even caused Linhardt to laugh.  
  
“Lorenz, Lorenz, I’m going to fall, you’re gonna make me fall!” She cried, and her flung her arms maddeningly over his shoulders, pressed tight to his chest, and Lorenz, with a rather flourishing show of grace, picked her up into his arms and spun her around, her long pink pig’s tails spinning in the cold, laughing wind.  
  
To the narrow side of the pond, Linhardt watched as Annette carefully grasped Felix’s hands inside of hers. She pushed back, hard on her heel, and pulled them onto the ice, however, much to Felix’s chagrin, he twisted, uncertain, and the strength of his hesitation cause them both to clashed together, as Felix went down with his back over the ice. She had landed in a perfect little pile across his chest, and, while low in the distance, Linhardt could hear the faint chuckling echoing off the thick ice as Felix laughed at himself.   
  
They watched for a while. Felix, much like a newly born-buck, never quite was able to get his legs to straighten out over the ice, but Annette glided around him in slow, mocking circles, blowing little red-gloved kisses to tease him. Meanwhile, Lorenz and Hilda seemed to be trying to out maneuver each other, complicated jumps and high kicks that cut the clean crisp air with a sense of style and grace. Again, Linhardt laughed.  
  
Alright. He _ supposed _ coming to watch his teammates make fools out of themselves wasn’t so terrible.  
  
Caspar made a small noise from his throat. He was now leaning quite heavily onto Linhardt’s shoulder. His head had fallen to rest along his chest. His breathing was slow and quiet. Linhardt pulled him closer at once, careful to rest his head under his chin.  
  
The world felt as if it did not know war.  
  
“Linhardt?” A soft voice asked of him.  
  
Linhardt blinked, pulled away from the soft warmth of Caspar’s hair, to meet Dorothea staring nervously down at him.  
  
“Sorry.” She added quickly. Her green eyes looked quite distressed. “I don’t mean to bother you. I just wanted to know if, um, you’ve seen Sylvain this morning?”  
  
Linhardt dropped his voice. He had protectively curled an arm around Caspar to keep him balanced and warm. “This morning? Not at all. A day ago, however, I did see him.”  
  
Dorothea looked as if she had swallowed very bitter medicine. “You did?”  
  
Her green eyes burned into his. However, Linhardt did now bow down to their will. He never would. Dorothea’s time was her own, as was his, and he would not provide her with further gossip.  
  
“Yes. I believe he would be looking for you by now?”  
  
Dorothea’s pretty pale face looked withdrawn. “No. I can’t find him anywhere.” She, too, had dropped her pitch, a rather easy feat for a well-trained singer. “Did he, um, say anything to you? About where he might’ve gone?”  
  
“No.” Linhardt told her bluntly.  
  
She bit her bottom lip. “Okay. Right.” Her eyes then peered down to spy Caspar, his face pushed into Linhardt’s coat, his chest. “Is he asleep out here? Goddess, _ how? _ It’s freezing.” _  
_  
Linhardt felt his hands smooth over the back of Caspar’s neck. It still felt quite warm, flushed by exhaustion and fever. “Yes. He insisted that he wanted to come watch everyone skate. I will wake him soon. I found that I couldn’t tell him no. Stupid as that was, considering that he can’t even stay awake long enough to watch. The cold probably feels good to him.”  
  
She stared at Caspar in Linhardt’s arms a moment longer. A look of pain lingered across her face that was not from the wind or the snow.  
  
Linhardt kept his face pointedly away to stare at others, their laughing and dancing over the ice. The words would not come. He wished he knew what to say to such a look.  
  
“Well, um. Thanks, Linhardt.” Dorothea finally said after a long moment. Her dark hair lingered in the wind, lonely and reaching out for nothing. “I’m gonna go, I guess.” She took a step back, her boot to crunch through the ice, before she turned back. “Um. If you need help with Caspar, I’ll be in my room. He looks a little peaky. I can take over with healing magic if you feel worn out.” She glanced at his face, friendly and concerned. “And you look worn out.”  
  
Linhardt turned to her at this. “...Thank you, Dorothea.” He smiled at her earnestly. “That is very kind. Perhaps I will. I have spent almost 48 complete hours using my magic on and off. I do not think I have much more left in me.”  
  
She smiled, too, a little sad in the snowfall. “I’m sure.” She turned away. “Goodbye, then.”  
  
Linhardt turned back away. He adjusted Caspar tighter against him, and allowed himself to feel content to just watch his friends glide back and forth, the sky so blue, and the world, white and quiet.

* * *

  
Sylvain stood just outside of Dorothea’s door. He kept his hands deep within his coat. He kept his father’s hat just over the back of his head, like a crown. This time, she wasn’t going to lock him out.  
  
….If he just...had the nerve...to knock...a little louder…  
  
The door opened.  
  
Dorothea had nearly stepped out _ into _ him. Her hands suddenly pushed into his chest in surprise, her pretty mouth opened into a startled noise as she stepped away.  
  
“Sylvain, oh, Goddess, you scared me!”  
  
He fought to untangle them quickly. “Sorry! I’m sorry, Dorothea! I didn’t know you were leaving!”  
  
She blinked, a hand still pressed dramatically to her chest, the fluffy fur at its collar rising and falling rapidly with the movement of her startling breathing. “That’s alright; I promised Linhardt I would visit him. He said he needed help with Caspar. I believe he’s sick, or something like that.”  
  
“Oh.” Sylvain felt as if the wind had been knocked out of his chest. “So, you’re busy right now?”  
  
Her green eyes looked at the floor. “Um...for a while, yes, I will be.”  
  
“Well.” He twisted his fists into the coat. He touched briefly at the gift he had slipped into the pocket. He tugged at it mournfully. Finally, he pulled it out. “Well, this won’t take but a minute. Here.”  
  
“What...is this?”  
  
“Um. Just open it.”  
  
Dorothea hands moved carefully over the thin brown wrapping, the silver thin ribbon. It collected her feet all too soon. Then, she simply stared down at her hands.  
  
It was the outline of a frame, fit for a small portrait. Along its brown, square-cut edges, there was the thin twine of flower roots, specifically Forget-Me-Nots, her absolute favourite, and they looked to be faintly...glowing.  
  
Her green eyes looked glossy now in the afternoon light. Sylvain felt himself lick his lips nervously. This was the moment that he’d know if he did the right thing.  
  
“I, ah, I didn’t do this entirely by myself.” Now, he blushed. “I asked Hilda to take the flowers and, you know, arrange them around the frame, so that they’d, um, glow at night. So…” the words felt stuck behind his teeth. “...so you could see her better.”  
  
“This is,” she began to say, but she stopped. He watched her bottom lip tremble. “Even in the dark? I’ll be able to see…” she closed her eyes to catch the tears threatening to spill over. “I…”  
  
She ducked her head away. The frame shook inside of her fingers. Sylvain just kept breathing. He could remember how now, and he wanted this to go...perfectly.  
  
“This will…make us...beautiful.” She said simply.  
  
“You two already _ are _ beautiful.” Sylvain added softly. He kept his eyes low. He wasn't sure if this was a moment she wanted him to see. It deserved to be hers, and hers alone. He could respect it. He could—  
  
Dorothea’s arms were suddenly thrown around him. She squeezed tight, so very tight, to him, and he felt her face press hard into his chest. _ “Thank you.” _  
  
Then, Sylvain felt a light weight lift from the top of his head. She picked up the hat right off of his head and rested it over her own, like a silk crown. She took his hand and pulled his mouth onto hers. He could feel her smiling under his lips. “It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful.”  
  
“You like it?”  
  
Her green eyes, how powerfully they looked, to stare so deeply into his. “I _ love _ it, Sylvain. I love it.”  
  
He couldn’t help but grin weakly at her. “So, ah, I’m sorry? I...I wanna say I’m sorry.” His eyes drifted down to the floor. “About everything.”  
  
Her hand found his face. She had pushed his gaze to look at her completely. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was selfish. I was mean. I didn’t mean to...to use you, Sylvain. To make you feel...”  
  
“That’s okay.” He said at once, but she stopped him with a finger over his lips.  
  
Dorothea’s green eyes looked so soft. “Please, give me another chance?”  
  
“Well…” he lingered under her finger. Then, he kissed it. “Only if you promise to keep that hat on?”  
  
She laughed. Her head thrown back, her long hair shaking at her shoulders, light and lovely. “Oh, of course! I couldn’t wait to get this one on fast enough!”  
  
Sylvain smiled at her. He wasn’t sure what would happen next, but he felt like he understood her...just a little better. And the way she swirled around him, her lithe grace and her playful bounce with that hat atop her head. He laughed, and then she did, too, clearly, happy.  
  
Another chance. Yes. Yes, he could take it.  
  
He’d take it every time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: dear god this was so cute, someone, someone help me, save me, the fluffffffffffffff
> 
> Also, thank you, sweet kind fandom, for enjoying! Please let me know what you think! And maybe, some day soon, I’ll write another Christmas-que fic, you know, NOT in September. Or not.
> 
> Probably definitely not.
> 
> If you like my work, feel free to check out my other fics, such as a heavy Felix/Annette fic called "Baby Pull Me (Closer)", or, if you're feeling REALLY angsty and sad, check out drunk Felix crying over his brother (in Annette's arms) in my other fic: "this is the wrong night (tell me goodnight and let it go)" on my profile C:


End file.
